THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF 


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THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF 
NORTH  CAROLINA 


ENDOWED  BY  THE 
DIALECTIC  AND  PHILANTHROPIC 
SOCIETIES 


B23U6 

.D8 

1897 


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This  book  is  due  at  the  WALTER  R.  DAVIS  LIBRARY  on 
the  last  date  stamped  under  "Date  Due."  If  not  on  hold,  it  may 
be  renewed  by  bringing  it  to  the  library. 

.DUE   +   O  0flTyRNED 

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Form  No  513, 
Rev.  1/84 

THE  LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2013 


http://archive.org/details/lifeofernestrena2346robi 


.  OS 

THE  LIFE  OF       \  SV7 

ERNEST  RENAN 


MADAME  JAMES  DARMESTETER 

(A.  Mary  F.  Robinson) 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 
1897 


To 

MADAME  JEAN  PSICHARI 
(No^mi  Renan) 

I  DEDICATE  THIS  PORTRAIT 
OF  HER  FATHER, 
WHICH  OWES  TO  HER  DEVOTED  HAND 
ITS  MOST  LIFE-LIKE 
TOUCHES 


682677 


CONTENTS 


PART  I 

CHAP.  PAGE 

h  Tr£guier  .....  3 
II.  Henriette       .         .         .         .  .13 

III.  The  Seminary  .         .         .         .         .  22 

IV.  A  Doubtful  Vocation  34 
V.  A  Great  Resolution  .        .  48 

VI.  Dominus  Pars  .....  57 

PART  II 

I.  New  Ideas       .        .         ,  .  .71 

IL  1848        .         .         .         .  .  .  81 

III.  The  Vale  of  Grace  ....  97 

IV.  The  Moral  Philosopher     .  .  .  111 
V.  Marriage         .         .         .  .  .120 

VI.  A  Mission  to  Phoenicia      .  .  .129 


PART  III 

I.  The  College  of  France     .        .  .149 
II.  The  Life  of  Christ  .        .        .  .159 
III.  The  Origins  of  Christianity       .        .  169 

vii 


viii 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGE 

IV.  Politics  ......  177 

V.  The  War— Renan  as  Prophet      .         .  187 

VI.  The  £lite        ....         .  196 

PART  IV 

L  The  Antichrist        ....  207 
II.  The  Origins  of  Christianity  :  the  Philo- 
sophers   .        .        .        .  .215 

III.  Souvenirs        .....  223 

IV.  ECCLESIASTES  IN  A  DEMOCRACY  .  .  230 

V.  The  History  of  Israel  .  .  .255 
VI.  Last  Days       .....  266 


PART  I 


CHAPTER  I 


TRfiGUIER 

ERNEST  RENAN  was  born  at  Treguier,  in 
the  Cotes  du  Nord,  on  the  28th  of  February 
1823.  For  the  third  time  in  sixty  years  Brittany 
gave  birth  to  a  man-child  who  should  transform 
and  renew  the  religious  temper  of  his  times. 

Chateaubriand  and  Lamennais  were  scarcely 
past  their  prime  when  the  young  Renan  first 
went  to  school  in  Treguier.  In  him,  as  in 
them,  the  racial  strain  is  strong.  Under  the  ex- 
uberance of  Chateaubriand,  the  revolt  of  Lamen- 
nais, the  sentiment  and  irony  of  Renan,  we  meet 
the  same  irregular  genius,  mobile  and  sensitive 
beyond  the  like  of  woman,  yet,  in  the  last 
resort,  stubborn  as  Breton  granite  under  its 
careless  grace  of  flowers. 

All  these  were  great  writers,  but  in  their  style, 
as  in  their  intellectual  quality,  they  have  small 
share  in  that  Latin  order  which  is  the  birthright 
of  a  Bossuet,  a  Racine,  or  even  a  Voltaire. 
Their  genius  is  a  sort  of  hippogriff,  as  Renan 
used  to  say  of  himself,  belonging  to  no  known 

3 


4  LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


race  of  mortal  herds.  Their  style  is  a  mid- 
summer medley  saved  from  incongruity  by  an 
infallible  grace.  Romance  and  Antiquity  meet 
there,  and  the  old  world  and  the  ultra-modern 
— the  harp  of  Tristan  and  the  echo  of  Paris. 
Celtic  magicians,  they  see  the  world  through 
a  haze  of  their  own,  at  once  dim  and  dazzling, 
full  of  uncertain  glimpses  and  brilliant  mists, 
like  the  variable  weather  of  their  moors. 

There  are  men  of  genius  whose  birthplace  is 
of  no  moment.  Who  remembers  that  Shelley 
was  born  in  Sussex  ?  But  Renan  is  as  Breton  as 
Merlin  himself.  Those  who  know  nothing  of  Celtic 
places  must  find  it  hard  to  understand  him.  When 
I  write :  "  Renan  was  born  at  Treguier,"  I  would 
desire  that  my  readers  should  call  up,  not  neces- 
sarily Treguier,  but  the  grey  steepness  of  any  large 
hill-town  in  Brittany,  Scotland,  Northumberland, 
Wales,  Ireland,  or  Cornwall.  Let  them  remember 
not  only  the  gaunt  and  solitary  aspect  of  the 
place,  but  the  kind  of  persons  who  dwell  in  these 
small  grey  cities,  at  once  so  damp  and  so  scantily 
foliaged,  under  the  incessant  droppings  of  the 
uncertain  heaven.  There  is  a  great  indifference 
to  worldly  things.  And  the  dreamer — we  may 
count  him  as  ten  per  cent,  of  the  population — be 


TREGUIER 


5 


he  poet,  saint,  beggar,  or  merely  drunkard — is 
capable  of  a  pure  detachment  from  material  in- 
terests which  no  Buddhist  sage  could  surpass. 
There  is  a  vibrating  "  other  worldliness  "  in  the 
air ;  the  gift  of  prayer  is  constant ;  religious 
eloquence  the  brightest  privilege,  and  religious 
fervour  a  commonplace.  Yet,  all  round,  in  the 
high  places  and  the  country  holy-wells,  Mab  and 
Merlin,  the  fairies  and  the  witches,  keep  their 
devotees.  And  over  all  the  grey,  veiled,  mel- 
ancholy distinction,  which  first  strikes  us  as  the 
note  of  such  a  place,  there  is  the  special  poetic, 
Celtic  quality,  the  almost  immaterial  beauty  which 
has  so  lingering  a  charm.  Many  landscapes  surely 
are  lovelier  than  these  weatherbeaten  moors  of 
wet  heath  and  harsh  gorse,  of  wild  broom 
and  juniper.  Look  at  them,  overhung  by  the 
wreathing  hill-mists,  traversed  and  seamed  across 
by  the  deep-sunken  river  valleys  which  hide  such 
unsuspected  wealth  of  hanging  woods.  There  is 
scarce  a  tree  on  the  upper  level — a  stunted  pine, 
perhaps  here  and  there,  or  half-a-dozen  lady- 
birches,  mixed  with  thorn,  clustered  round  some 
menhir  by  the  yellow  upland  tarn.  The  keen  sea 
wind  has  torn  and  twisted  the  scanty  trees  and 
blown  their  branches  all  one  way.  The  purple 
heather  barely  hides  the  rock  which  pierces  the 
sterile  soil,  as  a  bony  arm  frays  a  worn-out  gar- 


6  LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


ment.  The  ocean,  the  melancholy  ocean  of  a 
Celtic  shore,  bounds  the  horizon  with  its  illimitable 
grey.  The  Breton  coast  near  Tr^guier  is  the 
softest,  the  prettiest,  of  these  typical  Celtic  land- 
scapes. But  even  there  the  country  wears  a 
barren  grace.  Yet  what  Norman  pasture  or 
Burgundy  vineyard  can  boast  the  strong  attrac- 
tion of  the  moors  ? 

The  same  quality  —  neither  rich  nor  sound 
but  infinitely  sweet — clings  about  the  people. 
The  men  in  the  fields  gaze  at  you  with  stern  dark 
faces  in  an  almost  animal  placidity.  In  Renan's 
youth,  they  were  still  almost  as  wild  as  their 
country,  strange  rude  men,  with  flowing  hair, 
wrapped  up  in  goatskins  in  wintertime.  The 
girls  are  charming — it  is  difficult  to  say  why — 
their  slender  and  yet  rough-hewn  figures  have 
no  more  grace  of  curve  than  a  thirteenth  century 
church  saint  in  her  niche.  Their  pale  faces,  with 
down-dropped  lids  and  delicate  pointed  chins, 
have  very  little  bloom.  In  their  black  dresses 
and  white  coifs  they  have  the  austere  distinction, 
the  demure  reserve,  of  very  young  novices  who 
renounce  they  know  not  what. 

This  Breton  race,  apparently  so  severe,  is  one 
of  the  most  pleasure-loving,  and  one  of  the  most 
garrulous  in  France :  a  very  storehouse  of  myth 
and  legend,  of  song  and  story,  of  jest  and  gibe. 


TREGUIER 


7 


These  melancholy  men  and  maids,  visible  emblems 
of  renunciation,  are  capable  of  mirth  and  wit  and 
passion.  Fond  of  the  glass,  quick  to  repartee, 
they  glory  in  the  gift  of  the  gab,  but  only  when 
the  door  is  shut  on  strangers.  The  extraordin- 
ary strength  of  idealism,  the  infinite  delicacy  of 
sentiment,  which  form  the  inmost  quintessence  of 
the  Celt,  impose  on  him  an  image  of  seemliness, 
a  pure  decorum,  to  which  he  incessantly  con- 
forms the  old  Adam  rebellious  in  his  heart. 
Reserve  and  passion,  prudence  and  poetry,  are 
equally  inherent  in  him.  The  very  sinner  who 
trangressed  most  flagrantly  at  last  week's  wake 
or  "  Pardon,"  will  show  to-day  in  every  act  and 
every  word  a  serene  tranquillity,  a  justness  of 
thought  and  phrase  which  is  no  more  hypocritical 
than  was  the  passionate  fantasy  of  his  falling- 
away. 

Treguier  is  an  ancient  cathedral  city  set  high 
upon  a  hill  at  the  confluence  of  two  lovely  rivers. 
A  solitary  place  whose  quiet  streets  are  bordered 
with  blank  convent  walls  over  which  the  garden 
tree-tops  wave  at  intervals.  The  steep  and  silent 
city  is  crowned  by  a  Gothic  cathedral,  an  admir- 
able structure  whose  simple  lines  soar  upwards 
from  a  broad  and  massive  base,  ever  slenderer, 
ever  narrowing,  till  they  terminate  in  a  spire  of 
extraordinary  delicacy  and  loftiness,  a  land-mark 


8  LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


for  many  miles  around.  Beautiful  cloisters,  as 
old  as  the  church  itself,  surround  the  grassy 
churchyard.  But  the  glory  of  the  cathedral  is 
the  large  tomb  of  St  Ives  which  it  contains. 
The  patron  saint  of  Brittany,  who  is  at  once  the 
patron  of  Truth  and  the  patron  of  Rhetoric,  is 
buried  there. 

Such  is  Treguier  on  the  hill.  Two  steep  streets 
connect  this  "  haunt  of  ancient  peace  "  with  the 
seaport  of  Treguier,  a  busy  place,  yet  opening 
quietly,  not  on  the  full  sport  and  hurry  of  the 
ocean,  but  on  a  land-locked  estuary  folded  be- 
tween tranquil  promontories  wooded  to  the  water's 
edge.  Treguier  port  traffics  in  fish  and  grain,  and 
the  trading  population  centres  round  the  quay. 
But  this  stir  of  life  is  hushed  as  we  mount  the  hill. 
Only  a  few  retired  sea-captains,  a  sprinkling  of  the 
local  gentry,  and  the  numerous  clergy,  find  on  that 
peaceful  summit  an  undisturbed  asylum. 

In  the  first  quarter  of  the  present  century,  a 
certain  Renan,  of  the  fisher-clan  of  the  Renans 
of  Goelo,  having  made  some  money  by  his 
fishing-smack,  bought  and  inhabited  a  pleasant 
house  on  the  hill,  near  the  cathedral  and  the 
desecrated  Episcopal  Palace.  The  house  we  speak 
of  is  a  tall,  narrow,  irregular  building,  no  two 
windows  of  a  line,  whose  gable-casements  com- 
mand a  pleasant  view  of  hills  and  woods  seen 


treguier 


9 


across  an  abrupt  hill-side  flight  of  steep-pitched 
roofs. 

"  Captain "  Renan  (i.e.,  captain  of  his  fishing- 
smack)  was  a  feckless,  musing  man,  an  obstinate 
dreamer,  convinced  of  his  gift  for  practical  affairs. 
Yet  a  man  of  character,  of  a  silent  tenderness  of 
sentiment,  with  a  strain  of  melancholy  even  in  his 
happiest  affections.  The  name  he  bore  was  well 
known  in  Treguier,  for  his  father  was  one  of  the 
most  ardent  among  the  Republicans  of  the  place. 
In  those  days,  when  Charles  X.  was  on  the  throne, 
Republican  opinions  were  out  of  fashion ;  but 
Charles  X.  had  no  less  devoted  subject  than  the 
elder  Renan.  He  too  was  a  sailor :  it  is  the 
Bretons  who  chiefly  man  the  navy  of  France.  On 
the  very  morrow  of  the  Coronation  this  obstinate 
old  skipper  walked  down  Treguier  High  Street 
adorned  by  an  immense  tricoloured  cockade. 

"  I  should  like  to  know  who  will  snatch  these 
colours  from  me  ! "  cried  he. 

"  No  one,  Skipper  !  No  one  !  "  answered  the 
townsfolk  of  Treguier,  and  taking  him  by  the 
elbow,  they  led  him  home.  For  though  party 
passion  ran  high  in  Treguier — aye,  even  scaffold- 
high  ! — a  general  neighbourliness  tempered  preju- 
dice ;  and  men  who  had  threatened  each  other's 
heads  a  short  while  back,  showed  a  willingness  to 
render  each  other  any  kindly  service,  while  fully 


io         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


aware  that  on  the  morrow  the  old  political  quarrel 
might  break  out  afresh. 

In  one  of  these  hours  of  truce,  the  son  of  this 
staunch  old  sailor,  Captain  Renan  —  a  good 
Republican  himself — had  married  the  daughter 
of  a  respectable  Lannion  trader.  She  had 
been  reared  in  the  religion  of  the  altar  and 
the  throne.  Her  mother's  house  had  been, 
throughout  the  Terror,  the  devoted  hiding-place 
of  non-juring  priests.  But  the  brilliance  and  the 
success  of  post- revolutionary  adventure  had  left 
Captain  Renan's  bride  of  a  more  modern  way 
of  thinking.  She  was  a  Philippist — an  Orleanist, 
as  we  should  say  to-day  : — a  little  lively  gipsy  of 
a  woman,  black  as  a  prune  from  Agen,  and  with 
Gascon  blood  in  her.  She  had  ever  a  witty 
answer  ready,  and  knew  how  to  defend  her 
opinions  and  bring  the  laugh  on  her  side.  Her 
sharp  brilliance  formed  the  strongest  possible  con- 
trast to  the  dreamy  melancholy  of  her  gentle 
husband. 

The  Celt  is  not  only  religious  and  political, 
he  is  also  innately  superstitious.  There  were 
wonder-working  saints  and  fairies,  and  wise-women 
in  plenty,  on  all  the  moors  round  Tr£guier.  When 
Ernest  Renan  was  born, — a  seven  months'  child, 
— his  anxious  mother  feared  he  could  not  live. 
Old  Gude,  the  witch,  took  the  babe's  little  shirt 


TREGUIER 


and  dipped  it  in  a  country  holy-well.  She  came 
back  radiant :  "  He  will  live  after  all !  "  she  cried, 
"  the  two  little  arms  stretched  out,  and  you  should 
have  seen  the  whole  garment  swell  and  float :  he 
means  to  live  ! "  The  fairies  loved  the  child,  de- 
clared old  Gude,  and  had  touched  him  with  their 
wand  before  his  birth. 

Wise  old  dame,  she  saw  from  the  first  the 
strength  and  the  charm  of  Ernest  Renan  ;  a  sort 
of  natural  magic,  a  sort  of  immaterial  grace. 
There  was  the  fairies'  kiss  !  Renan  almost  cer- 
tainly exaggerated  his  debt  to  a  Celtic  ancestry. 
But  this  much  at  least  he  owed  them  :  this,  and 
that  obstinate  sweetness,  that  rare  fidelity  of  his, 
which  contrasted  so  strangely  with  the  liveliest 
impressionability  of  the  nerves.  And  some 
whilom  bard,  most  surely,  bequeathed  him  the 
peculiar  music  of  his  style,  clear  as  the  bell  about 
the  neck  of  Tristan's  hound,  which  rang  so  sweet 
that  whoso  heard  it  forgot  forthwith  his  cares  and 
all  his  sorrow. 

Seven  hundred  years  ago  the  Celtic  poets  in- 
vented a  new  way  of  loving.  They  discovered  a 
sentiment  more  vague,  more  tender,  than  any  the 
Latins  or  the  Germans  knew,  penetrating  to  the 
very  source  of  tears,  and  at  once  an  infinite  aspira- 
tion, a  mystery,  an  enigma,  a  caress.  They 
discovered  "l'amour  courtois."     Yesterday  their 


12         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


descendant,  Ernest  Renan,  would  fain  have  in- 
vented a  new  way  of  believing.  .  .  .  The  "  amour 
fine "  of  Launcelot  has  passed  from  our  books 
into  our  hearts  ;  we  feel  with  a  finer  shade  to-day 
because  those  Celtic  harpers  lived  and  sang.  I 
dare  not  say  that  Renan  has  done  as  much  for 
Faith— that  he  has  transported  it  far  from  the 
perishable  world  of  creeds  and  dogmas  into  the 
undying  domain  of  a  pure  feeling.  But,  at  least, 
the  attempt  was  worthy  of  a  Celt  and  an  idealist. 


CHAPTER  II 

HENRIETTE 

T  X  7E  have  spoken  of  fairies.  The  true  fairy — 
*  *  the  guardian  angel,  rather — of  Ernest 
Renan's  youth  was  his  only  sister,  Henriette. 
Henriette  had  already  one  brother,  Alain,  an 
excellent  lad  of  fourteen,  sober,  just,  and  silent. 
She  was  twelve  years  old  when  Ernest  was  born, 
a  little  woman  already,  troubled  about  many 
things,  dimly  aware  of  the  struggle  for  life  and 
able  to  understand  her  mother's  tears,  as  she 
watched  her  rock  the  baby  on  her  knees,  weeping 
passionately  over  this  second  son,  so  long  desired, 
and  now  born,  as  it  seemed,  into  a  world  of  sordid 
misfortune.  Already  the  head  of  the  family,  in  his 
dreamy  but  obstinate  unworldliness,  had  half  ruined 
the  little  household.  Henriette,  who  inherited 
her  father's  silent  and  tenacious  character,  bore 
him  a  child's  absolute  devotion.  She  adored  him 
and  understood  his  moody  reserve,  as  ruin 
gathered  closer.  She  loved  the  vivacious  mother 
whom  she  so  little  resembled,  and  who  showed 

13 


14         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  REN  AN 


the  plain  child  but  scanty  tenderness.  Above  all, 
she  hugged  to  her  inmost  heart  this  new-born 
brother,  as  though  she  felt  that  for  him,  through 
him,  and  in  him,  she  should  attain  to  a  completer 
existence  than  any  she  had  dreamed  of  hereto- 
fore. 

Henriette  was  neither  quick  nor  brilliant.  She 
was  not  at  all  pretty,  in  the  usual  sense  of  fresh 
country  prettiness.  We  might  say  of  her,  as  it 
was  said  of  the  Maid  of  Siena,  "  speciositas 
naturaliter  in  ea  non  inerat  excessive?  Her 
delicate  features  were  marred  by  a  birthmark. 
But  she  had  eyes  of  the  sweetest,  long,  white 
beautiful  hands,  and  even  in  childhood  a  bearing 
of  modest  distinction.  A  sort  of  innocent  dignity 
was  hers — a  dove-like  dignity  made  of  mildness 
and  quiet  and  reserve.  Nothing  of  the  poetic 
charm  of  her  birth-place  was  lost  upon  the  pensive 
child.  The  shadow  of  the  convent  walls,  the 
stillness,  broken  at  intervals  by  the  clash  of 
church  bells,  the  distant  moan  of  the  sea,  the 
half-understood  Latin  sentences  which  the  good 
Sisters  taught  her  in  the  psalter,  all  were  things 
to  be  pondered  in  her  heart, — subtle  influences 
to  mould  her  tender  nature.  Her  education,  if 
limited,  was  exquisite.  As  she  grew  out  of 
childhood,  the  noble  families  of  Treguier,  banished 
by   the   Revolution,  crept   back,  one    by  one, 


HENRIETTE 


15 


fatigued  and  penniless,  to  wither  in  their  ruined 
homesteads.  Many  single  ladies  of  the  most 
authentic  nobility,  were  glad  to  earn  their  bread 
by  giving  lessons — a  praiseworthy  habit  they  had 
contracted  during  the  Emigration.  One  of  these 
impoverished  damsels  completed  the  training  of 
Henriette  Renan,  and  added  to  her  natural 
sweetness  that  touch  of  good  breeding  which 
enhances  every  grace.  Henriette,  sensitive  to 
every  refinement,  quickly  caught  the  trick  of 
unspoken  and  apparently  deferent  authority. 
While  she  was  still  a  mere  child,  she  was  in 
great  request  as  a  tamer  of  wild  spirits,  and  the 
young  madcaps  of  the  place  yielded  to  her 
tranquil  charm.  She  was  born  to  guide,  to 
soothe,  and  to  educate.  And  when  she  was 
twelve  years  old  she  began  the  education  of 
Ernest  Renan. 

"She  attached  herself  to  me  with  the  whole 
strength  of  her  tender  and  timid  heart,  athirst  for 
love.  I  still  remember  my  baby  tyrannies  ;  she 
never  chafed  at  them.  Dressed  to  go  out  to 
some  girlish  party,  she  would  come  to  kiss  me 
good-bye,  and  I  would  cling  to  her  frock,  beseech 
her  to  turn  back,  not  to  leave  me !  And  she 
would  turn  round,  take  off  her  best  gown  and  sit 
at  home  with  me.  One  day,  half  in  fun,  half  as  a 
penalty  for  some  childish  offence,  she  threatened 


16        LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


to  die  if  I  would  not  be  good,  and  thereupon  she 
leaned  back  in  her  arm-chair,  closed  her  eyes  and 
made  believe  to  be  dead.  I  have  never  felt  any- 
thing so  vivid  as  the  pang  of  terror  with  which  I 
saw  my  dear  one,  immovable,  absent — for  our 
destiny  did  not  permit  that  I  should  watch  her 
last  moments.  Wild  with  grief  I  sprang  at  her 
and  bit  my  teeth  in  her  arm.  I  can  still  hear 
her  scream  !  But  I  could  only  say,  in  answer  to 
all  reproaches ;  4  Why  did  you  die  ?  Oh,  will 
you  ever  die  again  ? 9 "  1 

When  Ernest  Renan  was  five  years  old  and 
his  sister  just  turned  seventeen,  their  father's  ship 
came  into  Treguier  port  without  a  skipper.  None 
has  solved  the  mystery  of  the  end  of  Captain 
Renan.  Did  the  sea  wash  him  overboard  ?  Did 
he  seek  in  suicide  the  bitter  remedy  for  his 
troubles  ?  His  body  was  washed  ashore  off  the 
sandy  coast  of  Erqui.  He  died  in  debt.  Not 
mere  anxiety,  but  real  poverty,  was  henceforth  the 
portion  of  his  little  household. 

Everyone  at  Treguier  knew  and  respected  the 
Renans.  The  widow  was  left  undisturbed  in  her 
little  home ;  her  creditors  were  confident  she 
would  pay  off,  little  by  little,  her  heavy  inherit- 
ance. But  it  is  difficult  for  an  inexperienced 
woman  to  earn,  for  the  mother  of  three  children 

1  "  Ma  Soeur  Henriette,"  p.  13. 


HENRIETTE  17 


to  save.  I  suppose  they  had  some  thoughts  of 
letting  the  little  Treguier  home,  for  after  the 
unhappy  skipper's  death,  when  Alain  left  to  make 
his  way  in  Paris,  Madame  Renan,  Henriette,  and 
Ernest  removed  to  Lannion,  where  the  widow 
had  the  support  and  comfort  of  her  own  family, 
respectable  and  well-to-do  people  of  the  trading 
class.  Neither  Henriette  nor  Ernest  liked  the 
change. 

The  country  between  the  sea  and  Lannion  is 
the  very  cradle  of  romance.  On  the  sandy  shore 
near  Plestin,  King  Arthur  fought  the  dragon  ;  at 
Kerdluel  he  held  his  court.  Scarce  a  gun-shot 
from  the  coast  there  gleams  the  isle  of  Avalon. 
But  in  the  most  romantic  neighbourhood,  the  life 
of  a  country  town  is  essentially  commonplace. 
The  uncles  and  aunts  of  the  little  Renans 
had  not  much  in  common  with  Launcelot  or 
Enid. 

These  small  shop-keepers,  in  their  trivial  and 
difficult  prosperity,  these  worthy  Marthas  troubled 
about  many  things,  had  little  in  common,  either, 
with  our  two  immature  idealists.  Henriette 
especially  felt  the  transplantation.  Her  delicate 
and  tender  spirit  seemed  to  soar  ever  upward,  like 
the  distant  spire  of  Treguier,  further,  further,  from 
this  too  solid  earth.  Home-sick  for  Tr6guier  and 
heart-sick  for  her  dead  father,  Henriette  Renan 

B 


1 8        LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


saw  nothing  in  this  world  to  tempt  her  from  her 
wish  to  enter  a  convent.  Ernest  was  the  confi- 
dant of  her  vocation,  and  their  happiest  moments 
were  these  winter  evenings  when  they  would  slip 
away  to  church  together,  the  tall  sister  walking 
briskly  with  little  Ernest  completely  hidden  under 
the  ample  folds  of  her  Breton  cloak.  Which  was 
the  happier  then  ?  She,  God  in  her  heart,  the 
child  she  loved  at  her  knees  ?  Or  the  little  lad 
himself,  delighted  to  move  in  this  warm  loving 
darkness,  clinging  to  his  sister's  skirts,  crunching 
under  his  feet  the  fresh,  firm  snow  ?  Long  after- 
wards, this  would  still  be  their  relation,  on  the 
one  side  a  tender  guidance,  on  the  other  a  con- 
fident and  happy  clinging ;  and,  as  long  as  she 
lived,  the  cloak  of  Henriette  Renan  comforted  her 
brother  in  this  frosty  world. 

It  was  Ernest,  after  all,  who  proved  the  chief 
obstacle  to  Henriette's  vocation  :  Ernest's  future 
and  her  father's  memory.  The  poor  child,  with 
her  delicate  sense  of  honour,  could  not  rest  happy 
till  those  debts  were  paid.  How  was  her  mother 
to  pay  them  ?  Or  Alain,  in  his  'prentice  years  ? 
It  was  all  very  well  for  the  creditors  to  be  patient : 
until  the  last  sou  was  paid  her  father's  name  was 
that  of  a  bankrupt.    And  then,  Ernest ! 

One  day  Henriette  noticed  a  certain  careful 
awkwardness  in  the  gait  of  her  little  brother, 


HENRIETTE 


19 


always  a  slow  and  heavy  child.  Her  attention 
discovered  his  timid  endeavour  to  hide  an  un- 
seemly rent  in  his  baby  garments.  Poor  child  ! 
Such  a  humble  little  effort  to  be  decent  in 
tatters,  was  too  much  for  Henriette's  vocation. 
From  that  moment  the  convent  was  done  with. 
She  burst  into  tears  and  vowed  to  devote  her- 
self henceforth  to  the  welfare  of  this  patient 
brother,  who,  with  delicate  instincts,  seemed 
destined  to  cope  unaided  with  the  sordid  struggle 
for  existence. 

From  that  moment,  Henriette  Renan  was  the 
head  of  the  household.  Young  as  she  was,  a 
mere  girl,  inexperienced,  she  resolved  to  get  the 
better  of  ill-fortune.  The  resolve  of  a  Breton  is 
a  very  dogged  thing.  Like  that  stone  which  a 
Yorkshireman  keeps  seven  years  in  his  pocket 
before  he  turns  it,  and  then  seven  years  more  before 
he  flings  it,  the  resolve  of  a  Breton  is  a  thing 
which  can  bide  its  time.  None  of  the  British 
Celts  possess  that  union  of  a  tenacious  obstinacy 
with  a  very  sweet  and  tranquil  temper  which  is 
the  strength  of  the  Breton.  To  go  on  willing  the 
same  thing  for  years,  quietly,  without  making 
yourself  or  other  people  unnecessarily  miserable 
about  it,  is,  it  must  be  owned,  a  great  secret.  And 
if  the  Breton  neither  drank  nor  dreamed — if  the 
Breton  cared  in  the  least  for  success — there  would 


20 


LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


be  no  pulling  against  him  in  the  race.  Henriette's 
early  efforts  were  all  unavailing.  First  she  at- 
tempted the  thing  which  lay  to  her  hand  :  she 
went  back  to  Treguier  with  her  mother  and 
Ernest  and  tried  to  set  up  a  school  in  their  old 
home.  Then  in  1835,  she  started  for  Paris,  as 
governess  in  an  establishment  for  young  ladies. 
Before  leaving  her  dear  Treguier  on  this  desolate 
adventure,  she  received  an  unexpectedly  brilliant 
offer  of  marriage  from  a  man,  much  her  elder, 
who  felt  the  charm  and  rare  devotedness  of  this 
fragile  creature.  But  a  hint  that  he  did  not 
mean  to  espouse  her  relations  alarmed  the  high- 
strung  Henriette  and  sent  her  off  at  a  tangent  on 
her  career  of  self-sacrifice.  She  felt,  it  seems, 
some  inclination  for  the  kind  and  wealthy  neigh- 
bour who  shared  her  tastes  and  who  offered  her 
a  Breton  home.  But,  her  father's  debts — but, 
Ernest's  future !  How  could  she  forsake  the  two 
most  helpless  things  in  the  world,  the  dead,  and 
a  child  ?  She  thought  of  them.  As  for  the 
happiness  of  Mademoiselle  Renan  and  her  estab- 
lishment in  life,  these  were  very  secondary  con- 
siderations. It  was  unfortunate,  doubtless,  that 
she  was  so  morbidly  timid,  so  afraid  of  strangers, 
so  easily  home-sick.  She  must  try  to  overcome 
these  failings.  So  she  packed  her  trunk, 
pinned  on  her  old  green  shawl,  kissed  a  long 


HENRIETTE 


21 


good-bye  to  all  she  loved  on  earth,  and,  with  a 
last  cruel  wrench  as  she  crossed  the  threshold, 
she  took  her  place  in  the  Paris  coach  and  watched 
the  spire  of  Treguier  till  it  faded  to  a  smoke-line 
in  the  distance. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  SEMINARY 

MADAME  REN  AN  was  no  less  religious  than 
her  children.  But  she  wore  her  religion 
with  a  difference.  A  bourgeoise  of  Lannion,  with 
a  quarter-strain  of  Gascon  in  her,  she  was  less 
dreamy  than  the  family  she  had  married  into  : 
these  Renans,  obstinate,  ruminating  men — skip- 
pers like  her  husband  and  her  father-in-law,  or 
bards  and  vagabonds  like  Pierre,  her  brother-in- 
law.  Madame  Renan's  faith  was,  naturally  enough, 
a  little  different  from  her  daughter's  ;  less  a  per- 
petual elevation  of  the  soul  by  thought  and  prayer 
than  a  convenient  guide  to  life  and  death,  cheerful 
on  the  whole,  abundantly  illustrated  with  all  the 
most  agreeable  legends.  She  was  an  excellent 
churchwoman.  She  had  brought  up  her  eldest 
son  to  trade,  but  the  dear  desire  of  her  heart  was 
that  her  Benjamin — her  last  born  gifted  darling — 
should  become  a  priest. 

Ernest  was  not  six  years  old  when  first  his 
mother  placed  him  under  the  protection  of  the 
saints.    When  the  child's  father  had  been  brought 

22 


THE  SEMINARY 


23 


home  and  buried,  she  took  the  little  lad  by  the 
hand  and  led  him  outside  the  town  to  the  shrine 
of  St  Ives.  St  Ives  is  the  greatest  saint  in 
Brittany — the  advocate  of  all  good  Bretons  in  the 
heavenly  courts.  Madame  Renan  confided  her 
fatherless  son  to  the  guardianship  of  the  immortal 
lawyer.  With  what  feelings  since  then,  we  may 
wonder,  has  St  Ives  surveyed  the  career  of  his 
ward  and  fellow-townsman  ?  The  point  is  nice  ; 
for  St  Ives,  let  us  remember,  is  the  patron  saint 
of  truth.  Saint  Yves  de  la  Verite  may  pardon 
some  heretical  shortcomings  to  one  who  chose  for 
his  epitaph  Veritatem  dilexi. 

In  1829  Ernest  Renan  was  six  years  old.  The 
child  must  be  taught  to  read  and  write,  and  must 
learn  his  prayers  in  Latin.  Who  so  fit  as  the 
priests  of  the  seminary  to  educate  the  ward  and 
pupil  of  St  Ives?  When,  shortly  after  1830, 
the  Renans  returned  from  Lannion  to  Treguier, 
in  order  for  Henriette  to  prosecute  her  scheme  of 
school  keeping,  Ernest  was  placed  under  the  care 
of  the  priests.  There  is  an  excellent  seminary  at 
Treguier :  Renan  never  ceased  to  commend  the 
virtue,  the  simplicity,  the  kindness,  the  intellectual 
integrity  of  his  earliest  pastors  and  masters.  These 
ecclesiastics  taught  him  mathematics  and  Latin  ; 
they  taught  him  little  else.  The  notes  of  the 
teachers  of  Ernest  Renan  are  still  in  the  posses- 


24         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


sion  of  his  family.  They  are  excellent  notes; 
docile,  patient,  diligent,  thorough,  are  adjectives 
which  recur.  We  read,  however,  that  "  Ernest 
Renan  is  sometimes  inattentive  during  service  in 
church." 

Renan  never  ceased  to  extol  the  education 
given  him  by  the  priests.  "  They  taught  me  the 
love  of  truth,  the  respect  for  reason,  the  earnest- 
ness of  life.  And  these  are  the  one  thing  in 
which  I  have  never  varied.  I  left  their  hands 
with  a  soul  so  tried  and  fashioned  by  them  that 
the  light  arts  of  Paris  could  only  gild  the  jewel : 
they  could  not  change  it.  I  believe  no  longer 
that  the  Christian  dogma  is  the  supernatural 
epitome  of  the  sum  of  human  knowledge  :  but  I 
do  believe,  I  do  still  believe,  that  our  existence 
is  the  most  frivolous  of  things,  unless  we  conceive 
it  as  a  grand  and  perpetual  duty.  Old  and  dear 
masters,  nearly  all  of  you  dead  to-day,  whose 
image  often  visits  my  dreams — not  as  a  reproach, 
but  as  a  mild  and  charming  memory,  I  have  not 
been  as  unfaithful  to  you  as  you  think !  At  heart 
I  am  still  your  disciple." 

Twice  a  day,  regular  as  clockwrork,  Ernest 
Renan  might  have  been  seen  walking  slowly 
up  the  steep  High  Street  to  the  college.  The 
years  went  by,  the  child  of  eight  or  nine  became 
a  lad  of  fourteen,  but  the  mien  never  altered,  nor 


THE  SEMINARY 


25 


the  slow,  sober  gait,  already  a  little  rheumatic, 
nor  the  amiable  unremarking  gaze  lost  in  some 
pleasant  dream.  Be  sure  that  he  took  never  a 
glance  nor  a  step  more  than  was  needful ;  for  this 
child,  so  curious  in  all  matters  moral  or  intellectual, 
was  the  least  observant  of  mortals.  Renan  was  a 
gifted  rather  than  a  clever  lad,  more  meditative 
than  brilliant,  honest  and  profound  rather  than 
quick  or  versatile.  His  lighter  gifts  and  graces 
came  to  him  when  youth  was  over.  A  certain 
heaviness  and  slowness,  always  characteristic  of 
his  appearance,  appeared  as  yet  to  cling  round  his 
intrinsic  genius,  like  the  protecting  envelope  about 
the  unripe  burgeon.  Laborious,  conscientious, 
eager  to  please,  he  was  not  only  the  gifted  but 
the  good  boy  of  the  college. 

No  child  was  more  studious,  more  docile,  more 
easily  contented.  When  the  day's  task  was  done, 
no  game,  no  long  walk,  no  birds-nesting  or  black- 
berrying  excursion  tempted  this  odd  schoolboy, 
always  difficult  to  stir  and  averse  to  movement. 
He  would  take  his  book  and  sit  in  the  inglenook 
on  winter  afternoons,  or  in  the  summer  he  would 
saunter  round  the  cloister  and  watch  the  one 
old  cow  tethered  amid  the  thick  grass  of  the 
tombs.  Life  was  full  of  interesting  things.  His 
mother's  narrow  house  contained  treasures  of 
amusement.     The  child  knew  how  to  make  a 


26         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


great  deal  of  happiness  out  of  little  things.  He 
had  brought  back  from  Lannion  wonderful  archives 
of  old  bills  found  in  his  grandmother's  garret :  the 
quaint  Gothic  letterings  of  the  headings  filled  his 
baby-soul  already  with  the  true  historian's  feeling 
for  the  Past.  "There  has  been  a  deal  of  love  spent 
on  these,"  he  used  to  say.  Then  there  were  long 
political  discussions  with  Marie- Jeanne,  the  little 
maid-of-all-work  ;  interminable  musings  over  an 
odd  volume  of  the  "  Cantiques  de  Marseille";  best 
of  all  there  were  the  vast  histories,  the  complicated 
and  intricate  Breton  souvenirs  and  legends  which 
would  fall,  hour  after  hour,  from  the  lips  of 
"  Maman "  as  she  sat  busy  with  her  sewing  or 
her  knitting.  Beloved  "  Maman,"  gayest  and 
happiest  of  women,  from  whom  the  child  inherited 
his  temper  of  serene  contentment,  I  think  she 
taught  him  more,  with  her  fund  of  myths  and 
legends,  than  the  good  fathers  up  at  the  college, 
with  all  their  Latin  !  For  here,  in  the  peaceful 
house  -  place,  the  future  historian  of  religions 
learned,  as  unconsciously  as  a  child  learns  his 
mother's  tongue,  how  the  unknown  becomes  the 
supernatural  in  a  rustic  imagination,  and  how,  in 
another  wise,  a  fact  becomes  a  faith. 

He  learned  other  lessons  which  were  to  shape 
his  life  no  less.  Every  influence  taught  him  the 
duty  of  honour,  the  value  of  disinterestedness. 


THE  SEMINARY 


27 


These  qualities  were  not  merely  elemental  virtues, 
but  the  privilege  of  a  superior  intelligence.  All 
the  boys  at  Treguier  College  who  showed  an 
unusual  aptitude  were  destined  to  the  priesthood, 
unless  they  happened  to  be  nobles,  born  thereby 
to  certain  other  superior  duties  of  their  own, 
based  on  the  same  foundation  of  honourable 
disinterestedness.  Commerce,  money-getting,  un- 
inherited  wealth,  were  the  pursuits  and  the 
compensations  of  men  who  had  failed  in  their 
studies.  Had  they  been  quicker  at  their  Latin 
grammar,  they  would  certainly  have  chosen  to  be 
priests.  For  the  self-made  man  was  an  inferior 
creature,  half-educated,  fond  of  gain,  fond  of  his 
own  opinion,  harsh  to  the  defenceless,  pushing, 
and  frequently  discourteous ;  doubtless  useful 
enough  in  his  proper  sphere,  infinitely  below  that 
of  the  priest  or  the  noble.  The  man  who  seriously 
respects  himself  must  give  his  best  labours  to  an 
ideal  cause,  far  removed  from  his  own  desires  and 
necessities,  wholly  unconnected  with  his  personal 
profit.  No  other  life  can  be  beneficent  or  noble. 
.  .  .  Such  was  the  conviction  formed  in  child- 
hood which  was  to  guide  Ernest  Renan 
throughout  his  life.  But  in  childhood  he 
translated  this  idea  into  the  limited  vocabulary 
of  his  age.  He  looked  round  him :  the  most 
disinterested,  virtuous  and  studious  persons  of 


28         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


his  acquaintance  were  the  priests  at  the  Treguier 
Seminary. 

His  mother  was  enchanted,  the  good  priests 
smiled  acquiescence,  when  this  unpractical,  deli- 
cate, sedentary  lad,  who  was  always  first  in  the 
class-room  and  last  in  the  play-ground,  said,  "  I 
mean  to  be  a  priest !  "  Of  course  Ernest  Renan 
meant  to  be  a  priest :  and,  later  on,  Professor 
at  Treguier,  and,  later  still,  perhaps,  Canon  of 
St  Brieux.  He  would  become  the  worthy  emu- 
lator of  his  teachers  ;  and,  since  he  loved  books, 
— who  knows  ? — -he  might  compile  or  edit  some 
history  in  the  style  of  Rollin.  "  Maman  "  would 
live  with  him  always,  and  keep  his  house,  and 
mend  his  cassock  while  she  told  him  stories. 

Man  proposes.  ...  In  the  summer  of 
1838  Ernest  Renan  carried  off  all  the  prizes 
at  Treguier  College.  We  can  imagine  the  joy 
of  Henriette,  withering  and  paling  up  in  Paris 
from  sheer  hard  work  and  home-sickness.  All 
her  heart  was  in  her  dear  child.  The  news  of  his 
triumph  flushed  her  and  expanded  her,  and 
renewed  her  youth.  The  silent  and  reserved 
young  governess  could  not  keep  this  wonderful 
piece  of  news  to  herself.  Her  prophetic  heart 
foretold  great  things  for  Ernest !  The  doctor  of 
the  school  where  she  taught  was  among  the  confi- 
dants of  her  discreet  and  tender  enthusiasm,  and 


THE  SEMINARY 


29 


the  good  man,  touched  by  the  unwonted  fire  of 
this  quiet  creature,  interested  also  in  her  Breton 
Phoenix,  spoke  to  some  of  his  friends  about  the 
marvellous  boy  of  Treguier. 

Among  others  he  spoke  to  Monsieur  Dupan- 
loup, an  elegant  and  brilliant — nay,  the  most 
elegant  and  the  most  brilliant  —  Parisian  eccle- 
siastic. At  that  moment  Monsieur  Dupanloup 
was  superior  of  a  Parisian  seminary  which  he  had 
founded  in  order  to  give  educational  advantages, 
of  an  altogether  exceptional  kind,  to  young  nobles 
and  theological  students.  St  Nicholas  du  Char- 
donnetwas  meant  to  be  a  hot-bed  of  Catholic  fervour 
and  Catholic  genius.  Success,  brilliance,  talent, 
were  among  the  evangelical  virtues  specially  culti- 
vated there.  In  the  eyes  of  Monsieur  Dupanloup 
the  glory  of  God,  the  mysterious  Shechina,  was 
a  very  visible  and  glittering  light  of  a  somewhat 
superficial  radiance.  This  Parisian  recruiter  of 
Catholic  genius  was  quite  aware  that  good  things 
might  come  out  of  Brittany.  .  .  .  Chateaubriand 
.  .  .  Lamennais  .  .  .  When  he  heard  of  the  Phoenix 
of  Treguier,  "  Send  him  to  me  at  once ! "  he 
decreed. 

Renan  was  fifteen  and  a  half. 

"  I  was  spending  the  holidays  wtth  a  friend 
near  Treguier.    On  the  afternoon  of  the  4th  of 


30        LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


September  a  messenger  came  to  fetch  me  in  great 
haste.  I  remember  it  all  as  if  it  were  yesterday ! 
We  had  a  walk  of  about  five  miles  through  the 
country  fields,  then,  as  we  came  in  sight  of 
Treguier,  the  pious  cadence  of  the  Angelus, 
pealing  in  response  from  parish  tower  to  parish 
tower,  fell  through  the  evening  air  with  an  inex- 
pressible calm  and  melancholy.  It  was  an  image 
of  the  life  I  was  about  to  quit  for  ever. 

"  On  the  morrow  I  left  for  Paris.  All  that 
I  saw  there  was  as  strange  to  me  as  I  had  been 
suddenly  projected  into  the  wilds  of  Tahiti  or 
Timbuctoo."  1 

In  Paris,  at  the  seminary  of  St  Nicholas  du 
Chardonnet,  the  Phoenix  of  Treguier  appeared 
but  an  awkward  youth.  Pale,  sickly,  ungainly, 
his  stooping  shoulders  crowned  by  a  head  dis- 
proportionately large,  the  unprepossessing  lad  was 
as  dull  in  manner  as  plain  of  face.  He  went  mus- 
ing all  alone,  brooding  ever  in  a  solitary  reverie, 
his  fine  eyes  seldom  lifted  from  the  ground,  his 
subtle,  humorous,  delicate  smile  extinguished  in 
utter  homesickness. 

Every  now  and  then  Henriette,  in  her  old  green 
shawl  that  spoke  of  Treguier,  would  call  to  see 
him  in  the  parlour.  And  the  rest  of  the  time  the 
unhappy  boy  struggled  and  stifled  in  the  Slough 
1  "  Souvenirs  d'enfance  et  de  Jeunesse,"  p.  iju 


THE  SEMINARY 


3i 


of  Despond,  where  the  foot  sinks  hourly  deeper, 
whence  the  soul,  past  hope,  desires  no  escape. 
The  professors  at  the  seminary  must  have  been 
sorely  disappointed  in  their  Breton  prodigy.  But, 
one  morning,  the  priest  committed  to  read  the 
letters  written  by  the  pupils  to  their  parents,  was 
struck  by  the  profound,  the  yearning  tenderness 
and  heartbreak  of  Ernest  Renan's  outpouring  to 
his  mother.  He  set  the  letter  apart  and  showed 
it,  in  some  surprise,  to  the  director,  Monsieur 
Dupanloup.  That  evening  contained  the  weekly 
hour  appointed  to  read  out,  in  presence  of 
Monsieur,  the  list  of  the  places  taken  by  the 
boys  in  their  different  forms.  Renan  was  fifth  or 
sixth  in  composition. 

"  Ah  ! "  cried  the  director,  "  had  the  theme  been 
the  subject  of  a  letter  I  read  this  morning,  Ernest 
Renan  would  have  been  first !  " 

From  that  hour  he  followed  the  lad  in  his 
studies,  guided,  supported,  bewildered,  enchanted 
him,  and  made  the  new  interest  of  his  life.  Ernest 
Renan  was  not  to  die  of  nostalgia,  after  all.  But 
something  died  in  him  all  the  same.  "  The 
Breton  died  in  me ! "  he  used  to  say.  The 
transition  had  been  too  brusque  for  his  honest 
heart,  for  his  solid  and  logical  mind.  What  was 
there  in  common  between  the  archaic  faith  of  the 
Treguier  priests   and   this   brilliant,  decorative, 


32 


LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


literary  and  quasi-scientific  Catholicism  of  Paris  ? 
Nothing  which  seemed  important  in  the  eyes  of 
Monsieur  Dupanloup  appeared  supremely  needful 
to  those  Breton  saints.  How  could  the  same 
august  and  sacred  name  shelter  two  incompatible 
spirits  ?  If  the  one  were  true,  the  other  must  be 
false.  If  the  one  were  false,  the  other  might  be 
false.  If  both  were  true,  then  Truth  was  no 
longer  a  thing  one,  simple  and  sole,  but  complex, 
infinite,  susceptible  of  variation.  These  were  the 
thoughts  which  darkened  the  mind  of  the  young 
seminarist.  He  repulsed  them  as  temptations, 
and  redoubled  his  religious  practices. 

"  He  was,"  writes  the  Abbe  Cognat,  "  one  of  the 
most  devout  of  us  in  his  pious  reserve  :  chorister, 
writer  of  hymns,  dignitary  of  the  Brotherhood  of 
Mary.  Nor  was  he  without  a  touch  of  supersti- 
tion in  his  piety  :  never,  for  instance,  did  he  forget 
to  introduce  a  cross  in  the  flourish  which  termin- 
ated his  signature."  1 

If  the  Breton  died  at  St  Nicholas  du  Chardonnet 
— and  I,  for  one,  stoutly  deny  that  he  died — "  the 
Gascon  in  me,"  wrote  M.  Renan  much  later,  "  saw 
abundant  reasons  to  live." 

The  atmosphere  of  St  Nicholas  was  no  longer 
the  still  and  humid  air  of  Tr£guier  cloister. 
The  breath  of  the  boulevards  penetrated  through 

1  Abbe  Cognat :  M.  Renan.    Hier  et  Aujourdhui. 


THE  SEMINARY 


33 


a  thousand  fissures  into  the  closed  circle  of 
the  seminary.  Rollin  was  no  longer  the  ideal 
man  of  letters,  for  the  students  discussed  with 
passion  Michelet,  Lamartine,  Victor  Hugo,  those 
rising  glories  of  the  hour. 

"  I  discovered  that  there  was  a  contemporary 
literature.  I  learned  with  stupor  that  knowledge 
was  not  a  privilege  of  the  Church.  My  masters 
at  Treguier  had  been  far  more  advanced  in  Latin 
and  mathematics  than  my  new  professors.  But 
they  dwelt  sealed  in  a  catacomb  underground. 
Here,  in  Paris,  the  air  of  the  outer  world  circu- 
lated freely.  New  ideas  dawned  upon  me.  I 
awoke  to  the  meaning  of  the  words,  talent,  fame, 
celebrity.  A  new  ideal  swam  into  my  ken. 
This,  perhaps,  was  what  I  had  longed  for  so 
vainly,  so  vaguely,  in  the  dim  cathedral  aisles  of 
Treguier ! "  1 

1  u  Souvenirs,"  p.  185. 


C 


CHAPTER  IV 

A  DOUBTFUL  VOCATION 

T  IFE,  which  already  had  set  a  dozen  fatal 
4  questions  to  germinate  in  Ernest  Renan's 
mind,  had  shaken  the  very  foundations  of  the  faith 
of  Henriette.  Already  at  Lannion,  on  the  very  mor- 
row of  her  vocation  resisted,  she  had  begun  to  doubt 
of  the  truth  of  Christianity — a  strange  thing  when 
one  thinks  of  the  girl's  age  and  her  environment. 
Unhappy  as  a  governess,  she  no  longer  desired 
to  be  a  nun.  The  Paradise  of  her  old  dreams 
appeared  to  her  as  a  poor  piece  of  man's  work, 
a  projection  of  the  human  fancy ;  and  the 
adorable  Mary,  the  hierarchies  of  saints,  nay 
even  the  Good  Shepherd,  in  whom  she  had 
believed,  seemed  so  many  sacred  and  pitiful 
ghosts.  But  out  of  the  ashes  of  this  old  faith, 
reverently  lifted  on  to  the  high  places  of  the  soul, 
there  leapt  a  brighter  flame,  a  new  religion, 
imprecise,  without  text  or  dogma,  and  almost 
wholly  moral :  a  belief  in  the  vast  order  of  the 
universe,  speeding  through  cycles  of  time  towards 
some  Divine  intent,  and  furthered  in  its  grand  and 

34 


A  DOUBTFUL  VOCATION  35 


gracious  plan  by  every  private  act  of  mercy  or 
renouncement,  by  all  the  tendency  of  effort  which 
makes  for  righteousness. 

Thus  believing,  however  reverent  towards  the 
faith  which  had  nurtured  and  prepared  her 
soul,  Henriette  beheld  with  much  misgiving  her 
brother's  progress  towards  the  altar.  How  should 
a  boy  of  fifteen  appreciate  the  sacrifice  demanded 
of  him  ?  The  lips  said :  abrenuntio  I  but  the 
child  knew  not  what  he  renounced.  Most  sisters 
would  have  thought,  first  of  all,  that  he  cut  himself 
off  from  love,  but  I  believe  Henriette's  instinctive 
thought  was  that  he  cut  himself  off  from  liberty : 
that  the  child  bound  the  man  to  think  as  the 
child, — that  the  child  bound  the  man  to  obey  as 
the  child,  and  bound  him  into  an  intricate  and 
inextricable  fabric  from  which  there  could  be  no 
subsequent  deliverance  save  at  such  a  cost  of 
good  name,  public  respect,  and  ancient  friend- 
ship as  made  her  pale  to  think  of.  But  Henri- 
ette was  aware  that  the  only  fruitful  change  in 
spiritual  matters,  is  that  which  begins  within. 
Her  meddling  could  do  no  good,  only  harm. 
The  child  might  take  his  vows  and  keep  them  all 
his  life  long  in  perfect  inner  liberty,  his  heart 
remaining  in  accordance  with  his  rule.  She  said 
nothing,  therefore,  only  in  silence  vowed  him  her 
devoted  sympathy  if  this  should  not  be  the  case. 


36        LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


Half  hoping,  half  fearing,  lest  he  should  outgrow 
the  vocation  so  placidly  accepted,  she  went 
week  after  week  to  see  him  in  the  parlour  of  St 
Nicholas,  and  let  no  word  pass  her  lips  that  might 
hasten  the  issue. 

But  there  came  an  end  to  these  visits.  Henri- 
ette  found  the  struggle  for  life  hard  in  Paris. 
Few  were  the  savings  she  could  send  to  Treguier. 
When  Count  and  Countess  Andrew  Zamoyski 
offered  her  a  brilliant  situation,  amply  paid,  she 
accepted.  She  went  out  into  exile  in  Poland, 
trebly  far  way  in  those  days  of  post-chaise  and 
travelling-coach — into  a  climate  peculiarly  un- 
suited  to  her  fragile  constitution — into  a  foreign 
country  which,  among  its  population,  contained  not 
one  friendly  face.  Poor  timid  soul,  the  ten  years 
of  her  engagement,  the  last  ten  years  of  her  youth 
thus  offered  up  in  filial  sacrifice,  must  have  ap- 
peared in  the  prospect  longer  than  all  her  past. 
Yet  she  set  out,  in  1840.  Doubtless,  when  she 
bid  good-bye  to  the  dear  young  brother  whom 
at  their  next  meeting  she  should  find  a  man, 
she  did  not  dream  that,  from  the  vantage 
point  of  distance,  she  should  become  more 
familiarly  his  confidant,  far  more  intimately  his 
guide  and  true  Egeria,  than  in  the  happiest  days 
of  their  companionship.  All  that  Jacqueline 
Pascal  was  to  the  great  tormented  soul  of  her 


A  DOUBTFUL  VOCATION  37 


brother,  Henriette  was  gradually  to  grow  to 
Ernest  Renan. 

Some  short  while  after  Henriettas  departure, 
Ernest  Renan  was  promoted  from  the  seminary 
of  St  Nicholas  to  the  more  advanced  college  of 
Issy,  in  the  suburbs  of  Paris.  There  is  no  class 
of  philosophy  at  St  Nicholas.  In  the  French 
University  our  fifth  form  corresponds  to  the 
class  of  rhetoric,  our  sixth  or  highest  form 
to  the  class  of  philosophy,  which  is  the  direct 
portal  to  the  Sorbonne,  the  Ecole  Normale,  or 
one  of  the  various  special  schools  of  law,  medi- 
cine, engineering,  and  the  art  of  war.  Something 
of  this  order  is  maintained  in  the  seminaries. 
After  the  class  of  rhetoric,  St  Nicholas  sends 
such  of  its  pupils  as  are  destined  for  Holy  Orders 
to  study  philosophy  in  the  great  diocesan  seminary 
of  St  Sulpice,  which  reserves  for  their  accommoda- 
tion its  country  house  at  Issy.  Two  years  later, 
the  seminarists  are  received  into  the  vast 
establishment  of  the  square  St  Sulpice  at  Paris, 
where  they  are  initiated  into  the  mysteries  of 
theology. 

Issy  is  an  old  French  country  house  —  a 
small  suburban  palace  which  belonged  from  1606 
to  1 6 1 5  to  Queen  Margot  of  gallant  memory. 
The  worthy  fathers  have  since  added  a  few 
wings,  a  few  aureoles,  a  blue  mantle  or  so,  to  the 


38         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


mythological  personages  on  the  walls,  and  nothing 
else  has  been  altered  in  the  pavilion  of  the  Queen. 
The  long,  low  house  looks  on  to  a  park  planted 
in  the  usual  French  fashion  with  clipped  alleys 
of  lime  and  hornbeam  enclosing  wide  irregular 
lawns  where  the  flowers  spring  and  the  hay  grows 
and  ripens  as  nature  wills.  Not  only  in  hay- 
time,  but  right  through  the  autumn  and  on  sunny 
winter  days,  Ernest  Renan  might  have  been  found, 
spending  his  hours  of  recreation  on  a  stone  bench 
under  the  leafless  limes,  wrapt  in  a  great  houppe- 
lande  or  French  Inverness-cloak.  There,  imper- 
vious to  cold  and  damp,  he  read  his  book,  without 
a  glance,  without  a  word,  for  aught  around  him. 
Every  now  and  then  M.  Pinault,  the  reverend 
professor  of  mathematics,  would  stop  to  gibe  at 
him : 

"  O,  the  dear  little  treasure !  Look  at  him, 
don't  disturb  him.  Now,  pray,  don't  disturb 
him.  See  how  completely  he  has  rolled  himself 
in  his  form  !  Mon  Dieu  !  he  will  always  be  like 
that !  He  will  study  ! — study  ! — study  !  Poor 
sinful  souls  will  appeal  to  him  for  help.  He  will 
go  on  studying.  He  will  murmur  :  Leave  me  ! 
Leave  me !  I  am  just  at  such  an  interesting 
point !  " 

Ernest  Renan  would  look  up  at  his  tormentors, 
a  little  troubled  by  the  acuteness  of  the  shaft, 


A  DOUBTFUL  VOCATION  39 


would  heave  a  sigh,  and  would,  in  fact,  go  on 
studying. 

Renan  had  entered  Issy  with  a  passion  for 
Catholic  scholasticism.  The  seriousness  of  his 
intelligence  was  satisfied  by  the  vast  and  solid 
fabric  of  Catholic  theology.  Here  was  a  subject 
more  to  his  mind  than  Monsieur  Dupanloup's 
course  of  rhetoric  ;  more  to  his  mind  even  than 
those  first  fevered  readings  of  modern  romantic 
literature,  though  these  had  left  an  ineffaceable 
impression  on  his  talent.  But  now  he  had  come 
to  the  heart  of  things.  "  I  had  left  words  for 
facts.  I  was  about  to  examine  the  foundations, 
to  analyse  in  all  its  details,  this  Christian  religion 
which  appeared  to  me  the  centre  of  all  truth." 

And  hand  in  hand  with  the  Catholic  "  philo- 
sophy of  Lyons,"  Renan  studied  the  Scotch 
metaphysicians.  For  some  months  Reid  re- 
mained his  ideal  : — "  My  dream  was  the  peaceable 
life  of  a  laborious  ecclesiastic — Reid  or  Male- 
branche — attached  to  his  duties,  relieved  from 
his  parish  work  on  account  of  the  value  of 
his  researches.  Not  until  later  did  I  perceive — 
with  that  degree  of  certainty  which  soon  was 
to  leave  my  mind  no  room  for  choice — the 
essential  contradiction  between  these  metaphysical 
studies  and  the  Christian  Religion."1 

1  "  Souvenirs,"  p.  217. 


40 


LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


After  Reid  came  Malebranche,  then  Hegel, 
Kant,  and  Herder.  From  the  first  page,  these 
more  audacious  and  more  universal  thinkers 
exercised  on  Renan's  mind  an  irresistible  attrac- 
tion. "  I  studied  the  Germans,"  he  has  written 
more  than  once,  "  and  I  thought  I  entered  a 
Temple ! "  A  temple,  indeed,  vaster  than  any 
church.  ...  At  the  two  remotest  poles  of  human 
thought  there  are  situate  two  opposite  conceptions 
of  the  universe.  Orthodox  and  traditional  trans- 
cendentalism shows  us  a  definite  act  of  creation, 
a  living  God,  a  Providence  which  guides  the 
world,  and  the  infinite  army  of  the  immortal 
souls  of  men.  At  the  furthest  extremity  of 
metaphysical  science  exists  the  mystical  doctrine 
of  immanence,  which,  in  place  of  a  definite 
creation,  explains  the  universe  by  the  gradual 
evolution  of  a  germ.  All  Being  is  Becoming  :  an 
eternal  process,  an  infinite  continuance,  over  which 
an  unconscious  deity  broods  in  the  abyss.  The 
universe  is  animated  by  one  single  Soul,  in  whom 
all  living  beings  share,  but  of  which,  so  to  speak, 
they  only  enjoy  the  usufruct,  since  they  fade  and 
vanish  like  sparks  that  fly  upwards,  while  It 
remains  eternal.  Of  these  two  creeds,  Renan 
was  bound  in  honour  to  believe  the  first.  Little 
by  little,  he  inclined  towards  the  second. 

The  retentive  and  tenacious  mind  of  Renan 


A  DOUBTFUL  VOCATION  41 


let  nothing  slip  of  these  early  readings.  All  his 
philosophy  is  there  in  germ.  The  mystical 
pantheism  of  Herder,  the  Hegelian  idea  of 
development,  supplied  him  with  the  theory  of 
evolution — of  a  world  perpetually  in  travail  of 
a  superior  transformation.  Kant  renewed  for 
him  the  impelling  principle  of  Duty.  And 
Renan's  theology  is  contained  in  a  phrase  of 
Malebranche's — Dieu  n'agit  pas  par  des  volontes 
particulieres :  God  does  not  act  by  special  pro- 
vidences. 

"  I  greatly  like  your  German  thinkers  (he 
wrote  to  his  sister  in  September  1842),  though 
they  be  somewhat  pantheist  and  sceptic.  .  .  . 
One's  first  impression  of  philosophy  is  that  it  tends 
towards  a  universal  scepticism.  One  is  struck 
by  the  uncertainty  of  human  knowledge,  the 
slight  foundation  for  all  opinions  save  those  based 
on  reason.  What  we  had  always  taken  for 
Truth  appears  mere  prejudice  and  error.  .  .  . 
Philosophy  excites,  and  only  half  satisfies  the 
appetite  for  Truth.  I  am  eager  for  mathe- 
matics ! " 1 

Nothing  could  be  more  characteristic  of  R.enan's 
peculiar  intellectual  constitution  than  the  manner 
in  which  this  very  appetite  for  proof  served  to  re- 
strain his  scepticism.    He  appears  to  have  decided, 
1  Ernest  et  Henriette  Renan  :  "  Lettres  intimes,"  pp.  88,  96,  97. 


42 


LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


almost  immediately,  that  the  pure  toil  of  the 
human  intellect  in  the  void  could  produce  no 
solution  of  the  eternal  problem.  He  demanded, 
not  a  system,  but  a  proof ;  and  while  continuing 
to  read  Kant  and  Herder,  and  especially  Male- 
branche,  he  devoted  no  less  a  part  of  his  time  and 
strength  to  the  pursuit  of  mathematics  and  natural 
science.  "  Who  shall  criticise  the  Eternal  without 
knowledge  ?  "  he  cried  with  Job.  ...  By  a  sort  of 
instinct  which  had  not  yet  found  its  right  outlet, 
Ernest  Renan  sought  in  exact  science  an  answer 
to  the  terrible  problems  which  philosophy  had  set 
him,  and  which  the  approximative  or  historical 
sciences  were  at  length  to  resolve. 

In  this  state  of  suspense,  voluntarily  imposed, 
there  were  moments  when  Renan  relinquished 
all  his  doubts  with  the  great  cry  of  Faust : 
Gefiihl  ist  alles !  His  heart  had  never  wavered 
an  instant  in  its  absolute  attachment  to  the 
Catholic  Church.  If  faith  be  a  sentiment,  if  we 
know  God  only  by  the  heart,  then  Renan  was 
a  Christian.  No  life  to  him  appeared  so  beautiful, 
so  desirable,  so  true  to  the  highest  ideal,  as  the 
life  of  a  priest.  "  Even  if  Christianity  be  only  a 
dream,"  he  writes  to  his  sister  in  September  1842, 
"  Even  if  Christianity  be  only  a  dream,  the 
priesthood  remains  a  divine  type."  Your  true 
vocation  is  revealed  by  a  certain  inaptitude  for 


A  DOUBTFUL  VOCATION  43 


any  other  career.  Renan,  with  his  passionate 
love  of  study,  his  taste  for  seclusion,  his  complete 
incapacity  for  practical  affairs, — Renan,  with  his 
vague  and  lofty  aspirations  towards  the  infinite, 
seemed  born  to  be  a  priest.  From  Issy,  in  1843, 
he  wrote  to  Henriette  : — "  In  fact  I  am  only  fit 
for  one  sort  of  life — a  life  of  study  and  reflection, 
retired  and  tranquil.  All  the  ordinary  occupa- 
tions of  mankind  appear  insipid  to  me ;  their 
duties  taste  flat  against  my  palate  and  their 
pleasures  are  a  weariness.  The  motives  that 
guide  them  are  odious  to  me.  It  is  clear  that 
I  am  not  born  for  a  life  of  action. 

"  A  private  life  would  be  my  happiness.  But 
that  a  man  should  live  merely  to  himself  taints 
his  retirement  with  egoism.  Even  if  it  were 
possible  that  I  should  live  so,  and  not  be  a 
burden  on  those  I  love  !  The  priestly  life  offers 
all  I  desire  without  any  compensating  disad- 
vantage. The  priest  lives  for  his  fellows :  he 
is  their  repositary  of  wisdom  and  good  counsel. 
He  is  a  man  of  study  and  much  meditation,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  a  brother  unto  his  brethren. 
And  this  is  in  my  eyes  the  ideal  life. 

"  I  am  deep  in  philosophy  and  physics — deep 
in  Malebranche,  the  finest  dreamer,  the  most 
implacable  logician  who  ever  existed.  Yet  he 
was  a  priest.    More  than  that ;  he  was  a  monk. 


44         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 

And  he  lived  unmolested  in  an  age  when  Rome 
was  jealous  of  her  powers.  See  how  man,  by  the 
mere  impetus  of  his  own  weight,  is  constantly 
carried  up  the  steeps  of  Hope  ! "  1 

But  for  Henriette,  vehement  and  tender,  he 
would,  no  doubt,  have  given  way.  She,  with  her 
piercing  insight,  her  wide  prescient  outlook,  her 
innate  incapacity  for  compromise  in  a  case  of 
conscience,  was  for  ever  exhorting  him,  enjoining, 
remonstrating.  More  than  once  his  heart  fails  : 
"  Ah,  Henriette,  I  am  weak ! "  She  will  have 
no  mercy !  She  sees,  she  feels,  all  that  is  fatally 
ignoble,  hypocritical,  and  arid  in  the  life,  and  at  last, 
in  the  mind  even,  of  the  unbelieving  priest.  That 
vocation  which  Ernest  beheld  on  its  ideal  side 
only,  she  saw  in  all  the  formidable  consequences 
of  its  limitless  subordination.  Can  an  ecclesiastic 
dispose  of  his  own  soul  ?  Is  he  not  subject,  even 
in  spiritual  things,  to  the  direction  of  his  superiors? 
Should  he  see  the  better  part,  is  he  always  free  to 
chose  it  ?  Is  he  not  bound  to  follow  in  a  track 
made  to  suit  the  common  herd  ?  Must  not  the 
tyranny  of  custom  and  number  drag  down  to  the 
level  of  the  majority  the  rare  devotees  of  an  ideal 
duty?  Anxiously,  eagerly,  she  entreats  her 
brother  to  assume  no  bond  too  soon,  to  wait  until 
he  be  of  man's  estate  before  he  take  upon  himself 

1  "  Lettres  intimes,"  p.  118. 


A  DOUBTFUL  VOCATION  45 


the  vows  and  service  of  a  man.  "  Above  all,  do 
not  think  of  us — of  our  family  well-being  !  There 
is  no  true  claim  there.  I  can  suffice  !  "  She  pro- 
poses to  him  other  prospects.  As  a  professor  or 
as  a  public  schoolmaster  he  might  live  the  life  of 
study  he  desires,  and  be  useful  to  his  fellows — 
and  yet  be  free !  She  promises  to  find  some 
sure  solution — not,  no  doubt,  the  ideal  of  his 
dream.  "  But  that  ideal  does  not  exist,  I  fear, 
upon  our  work-a-day  earth.  Life  is  a  struggle. 
Life  is  hard  and  painful.  Yet,  let  us  not  lose 
courage.  If  the  road  be  steep  we  have  within  us 
a  great  strength  ;  we  shall  surmount  our  stum- 
bling-blocks !  It  is  enough  if  we  possess  our 
conscience  in  rectitude,  if  our  aim  be  noble,  our 
will  firm  and  constant.  Let  happen  what  may, 
on  that  foundation  we  can  build  up  our  lives." 

Meanwhile,  at  Issy,  other  influences,  no  less 
determined,  no  less  sincere,  were  concentrated 
upon  the  unstable  soul  of  Renan.  In  June 
1843,  Renan,  towards  the  end  of  his  course  at 
Issy,  was  informed  that  he  was  among  the  chosen 
few  admitted  to  the  tonsure.  The  young  man 
implored  a  delay,  immediately  granted :  "  But 
keep  this  affair,"  said  his  director,  "  separate  from 
the  question  of  your  vocation.  They  are  distinct, 
and  you  know  my  opinion  as  to  the  second." 

"  And  would  you  believe,"  writes  Renan  in- 


46         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


genuously  to  his  sister,  "  that  I  too  am  now  much 
more  assured  of  my  vocation.  All  my  directors 
are  convinced  of  it.  .  .  .  As  for  the  question 
of  intellectual  liberty,  I  have  answered  myself : 
there  are  two  sorts  of  independence ;  the  one 
presumptuous  and  bold,  railing  at  all  that  is 
respectable,  —  this  is  indeed  denied  me  by 
priestly  duty  :  but  in  any  case,  my  conscience 
and  my  desire  for  truth  would  forbid  me  such 
audacities  ;  of  this  sort  of  independence,  there 
can,  therefore,  be  no  question.  There  is,  however, 
an  independence  of  another  fashion,  wise,  sage, 
respecting  what  is  worthy  of  respect,  despising 
neither  beliefs  nor  persons,  examining  all  things 
calmly,  in  good  faith,  using  reason  as  a  divine 
gift,  and  neither  accepting  nor  rejecting  any 
conclusion  on  the  mere  sanction  of  a  human 
authority.  Such  independence  is  open  to  all 
men,  and  why  not  to  a  priest  ?  It  is  true  that 
in  the  case  of  a  priest  this  liberty  is  subject  to 
a  certain  restriction  from  which  other  men  are 
free.  The  priest  must  know  when  to  be  silent ! 
He  must  place  a  guard  upon  his  lips.  He  must 
not  scandalize  the  weaker  brethren ;  for  their 
name  is  legion  who  take  umbrage  at  that  which 
they  can  not  comprehend.  But,  after  all,  is  it  so 
hard  to  keep  one's  mind  to  oneself  in  solitude? 
It  is  often  a  secret  movement  of  vanity  which 


A  DOUBTFUL  VOCATION  47 


leads  us  to  communicate  our  opinions.  The  law 
of  silence  ought,  perchance,  to  be  the  chosen  por- 
tion of  the  lover  of  peace.  '  We  must  have  a 
silent  opinion  at  the  back  of  our  mind/  said 
Pascal,  '  which  is  our  secret  standard  in  all  things, 
while  we  speak  the  language  understanded  of  the 
people/  " 


CHAPTER  V 


A  GREAT  RESOLUTION 

T  N  this  frame  of  mind  Renan  left  the  seminary 
at  Issy,  and  proceeded  in  due  form  to  the 
great  College  of  St  Sulpice,  in  order  to  take  his 
degree  in  theology  prior  to  entering  the  Church. 
Here  he  began  to  study  Hebrew.  From  the  first 
he  displayed  a  singular  gift  for  Semitic  philology. 
And  this  appeared  to  simplify  his  career.  It  seemed 
so  obvious  that  Renan  was  destined  to  be  professor 
of  Oriental  languages  in  a  Catholic  seminary. 
But  in  reality,  every  month  of  study  led  him 
further  and  further  from  the  Church.  Here,  in 
these  questions  of  date,  in  this  patient  study  of  those 
inflections  which  serve  to  prove  a  date, — here  was 
that  certainty,  that  proof  positive,  for  which  he 
had  so  vainly  craved  in  the  throes  of  his  doubts. 
Renan,  by  natural  gift,  was  not  a  pure  thinker, 
but  a  historian.  The  proofs  of  history  were,  in 
his  eyes,  the  only  authentic  proofs.  And  these 
were  all  against  the  Church.  No  impartial  philo- 
logist can  maintain  that  the  second  part  of  Isaiah 
is  due  to  the  same  hand  as  the  first.  The  Book 
48 


A  GREAT  RESOLUTION  49 

of  Daniel  is  clearly  apocryphal.  Who  can  sup- 
pose that  the  grammar  or  the  history  of  the 
Pentateuch  date  from  the  period  of  Moses? 
Admit  one  error  in  a  Revealed  Text  and  you 
incriminate  the  whole.  In  another  order  of  facts 
it  is  clear  that  many  a  dogma  of  the  Church 
reposes  on  the  erroneous  translations  of  the 
Vulgate.  The  Church,  like  the  Scriptures,  was 
therefore  fallible ! 

Meanwhile,  St  Sulpice  laid  the  accent  on 
philology,  insisted  on  Renan's  peculiar  gift, 
and  gave  him  every  possible  advantage.  A 
special  permission  allowed  him  to  follow  M. 
Quatremere's  course  of  Hebrew  and  Syro-Chaldaic 
tongues  at  the  College  of  France.  In  1844  he 
was  intrusted  writh  a  preparatory  class  of  Hebrew 
grammar  at  St  Sulpice.  At  twenty-two  years  of 
age  the  young  professor  applied  to  the  Semitic 
languages  the  system  which  Bopp  had  recently 
deduced  from  the  comparison  of  the  different 
Indo-European  tongues.  Renan's  General  History 
of  Semitic  Languages  was  to  spring  from  this  class 
at  St  Sulpice. 

The  young  scholar  tried  to  stifle  his  doubts,  to 
apply  himself  relentlessly  to  exact  studies,  to  pay  the 
least  possible  attention  to  his  religious  convictions. 
A  professor  in  a  seminary  would  not  need  the  living 
faith  of  the  simple  parish  priest.  Alas,  his  exact  and 

D 


So         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


patient  mind  assimilated  all  the  knowledge  afforded 
him  by  the  College  of  France,  and  by  his  masters 
at  St  Sulpice,  and  found  therein  new  material 
for  disbelief.  But  while  his  reason  disengaged 
itself  day  by  day  from  the  authority  of  the 
Church,  his  heart  found  every  day  some  new 
reason  to  be  grateful.  Rome  has  never  dis- 
regarded the  talents  of  her  servitors.  In  our 
time  she  is  especially  tender  to  such  of  them 
as  show  a  superior  capacity  for  science :  since 
at  that  outpost  she  is  most  frequently  attacked. 
The  directors  of  St  Sulpice  were  not  at  all  in- 
clined to  under-rate  their  pupil,  they  were  ready 
to  make  almost  any  sacrifice  in  order  to  keep 
him  where  his  talents  were  so  greatly  needed. 
They  hoped  also,  doubtless,  that  science  would 
prove  a  derivative,  a  happy  counter-irritant,  likely 
to  allay  the  excess  of  German  metaphysics — and 
this  shows  their  sincerity :  they  could  not  suppose 
the  truth  upon  the  other  side !  Who  can  blame 
their  zeal  ?  They  were  not  only  wise  and  prudent, 
according  to  their  generation  ;  they  were  charitable 
with  an  eternal  charity.  Their  work  of  faith  and 
rescue  was,  to  thern,  none  the  less  a  work  of  faith 
and  rescue,  because  it  was  accomplished  with 
an  ulterior  aim  and  an  extraordinary  diplomacy. 

It  was  of  no  avail.  Renan  was  honest,  and  at 
the  other  end  of  Europe  there  was  Henriette 


A  GREAT  RESOLUTION  51 

ceaselessly  exhorting  him  to  honesty.  In  his 
experience,  science  had  confirmed  the  doubts 
aroused  by  speculation.  He  knew  what  was 
the  essential  minimum  of  Catholic  belief:  and 
he  knew  that  he  did  not  possess  it.  In  this 
mood  he  returned  to  Treguier  in  1845,  to  spend 
the  summer  vacation  with  his  mother. 

"  Ah,  dear  Henriette,  the  future  fills  me  with 
fear.  I,  so  weak,  so  inexperienced,  so  lonely,  so 
unsupported, — with  only  you,  five  hundred  leagues 
away,  to  help  me — how  am  I  to  shatter  bonds 
so  mighty,  and  to  wrench  myself  from  a  path 
whither  a  superior  power  has  led  me  !  I  tremble 
when  I  think  of  it ;  but  I  shall  not  fail.  And 
then — do  you  think  I  tear  my  faith  out  of  my 
heart  without  a  pang?  Do  you  think  I  quit, 
without  reluctance,  these  projects  which  for  so 
many  years  have  made  up  my  life  and  my  happi- 
ness ?  And  all  this  world  of  mine,  in  which  I 
was  so  at  home,  will  cast  me  out  for  a  renegade  ? 
And  that  other  world — will  it  accept  me  ?  The 
first  loved  me,  and  made  much  of  me  :  what  does 
it  not  promise  even  to-day  ?  Henriette,  my  good 
Henriette,  keep  me  in  heart !  Oh,  how  sad  and 
barren  life  appears  to  me  in  these  moments !  .  .  . 
Oh,  my  God,  into  what  a  snare  hast  Thou  led 
my  feet.  I  can  only  free  myself  by  piercing  my 
mother's  heart.    Oh,  mother !    Mother !    I  do 


52         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


all  I  can  to  paint  the  future,  to  cheer  her  as  best 
I  may,  to  soothe  her  fears.  .  .  .  How  often  have 
I  resolved  to  cast  my  doubts  and  scruples  to  the 
winds  and  go  straight  ahead  !  She  is  there,  two 
paces  away !  God  knows  if  I  love  and  revere 
her :  it  is  but  a  torture  the  more.1 

"  Her  endearments  break  my  heart ;  her  day 
dreams — which  she  is  for  ever  repeating,  and 
which  I  never  find  the  cruel  courage  to  gainsay — 
are  a  continual  grief.  Ah,  if  she  only  understood  ! 
I  would  sacrifice  everything  to  make  her  happy — 
everything  except  my  conscience  and  my  duty. 
Ah,  why  was  I  not  born  a  Protestant  in  Germany! 
Herder  was  a  bishop,  and  he  was  barely  a 
Christian.  But  in  the  Catholic  Church  there  is 
no  room  for  heresy. 

"  My  German  philosophers  are  my  resource. 
There  I  behold  the  continuation  of  Jesus  Christ ! 
What  sweetness  and  what  strength !  Christ 
will  come  from  the  North  at  His  Second  Ad- 
vent. .  .  . 

"  I  still  believe.     I  pray.     I  repeat  the  Pater 
with  rapture.     I  love  to  be  in  church.  Pure, 
simple,  artless  religion  touches  me  profoundly 
in  my  lucid  moments  :  then  I  feel  the  perfume  of 
1  "  Lettres  intimes." 


A  GREAT  RESOLUTION  53 


God.  Yes,  I  am  pious,  fervidly  pious,  sometimes, 
in  spite  of  all  my  doubts,  I  think  I  shall  always 
remain  pious  in  any  case.  Piety  has  surely  a 
value  of  its  own — be  it  merely  subjective. 

"  Here  they  take  me  for  a  good  little  seminarist, 
very  religious,  very  gentle.  God  forgive  me,  it  is 
not  my  fault !  How  could  I  make  them  under- 
stand !  I  could  never  put  so  much  German  into 
the  heads  of  my  honest  Bretons. 

"  There  are  moments  when  I  think  I  will 
amputate  my  reason,  and  live  only  for  the  mystic 
life.  Except  my  judgment,  except  the  faculty 
which  weighs  and  criticises,  the  Catholic  Church 
responds  to  every  function  of  my  soul.  I  must 
therefore  sacrifice  either  the  Church  or  my  judg- 
ment ...  a  difficult  and  cruel  operation,  but 
God  knows  I  would  perform  it  if  I  could  think 
it  His  will.  Ah !  how  I  dread  the  end  of  the 
vacation !  When  it  comes  to  practice,  what 
shall  I  decide  ?  "  1 

This  young  Hamlet  of  the  Inner  Life  was  none 
the  less  a  Breton,  with  a  spring  of  resolve  in  him 
on  which  he  did  not  count  enough.  More  than 
once  in  his  career  the  man  who — in  the  phrase 
of  Montaigne — was  among  all  others  "  undulating 
and  diverse,"  was  to  exhibit  this  same  admirable 
obstinacy  for  conscience'  sake.     He  left  Treguier 

1  Letters  to  the  Abbe  Cognat :  "  Souvenirs,"  p.  382  et  seq. 


54        LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


on  the  9th  of  October  1845,  and  returned  to 
St  Sulpice  prepared  to  temporize  and  dally,  far 
from  certain  of  his  future  choice.  A  sort  of 
innocent  duplicity  made  the  constraint  of  pious 
practices  not  entirely  odious  to  him  ;  a  certain 
artless  macchiavellism,  which  he  never  lost,  made 
the  difficult  and  mortal  game  he  played  rather 
interesting,  than  merely  cruel,  or  repugnant. 
Moreover,  the  beauty  of  Catholicism  satisfied 
his  artistic  instincts,  his  tender  sensibility.  And 
his  education  had  fostered  in  him  his  natural 
optimism,  so  that  he  still  sometimes  envisaged,  as 
quite  practicable,  heaven  knows  what  chimaeric 
fusion  between  an  inward  sincerity  and  an  out- 
ward observance  of  the  Noble  Lie.  But  his  religious 
education  had  also  fostered  in  him  an  extraordin- 
ary strength  of  conscience — backed  at  the  last 
extremity,  as  we  have  said,  by  the  Breton's 
doggedness. 

It  was  evening  when  Renan  arrived  in  the 
square  of  St  Sulpice.  A  surprise  awaited  him. 
The  directors,  who  had  dallied  and  gone  saunter- 
ing long  enough,  thought  the  moment  had  come 
for  a  brusque  tightening  of  the  rein,  for  a  flying 
leap  over  the  hedge.  Renan  found  himself  no 
longer  a  pupil  of  the  seminary.  During  his 
absence  he  had  been  appointed  professor  in  the 
Archbishop  of   Paris's    new  Carmelite  College. 


A  GREAT  RESOLUTION  55 


To  accept  was  to  give  a  pledge  of  good  faith  to 
the  Church.  To  refuse  so  honourable  a  position 
was  inexplicable.  Renan  sought  his  superiors, 
explained  his  whole  position,  his  doubts,  his 
scruples,  which,  instead  of  diminishing,  in- 
creased with  every  month.  Once  at  bay  he 
stood  firm,  refused  to  temporize,  and  showed 
the  obstinate  grit  in  him.  The  Fathers  im- 
mediately gave  way ;  their  bonds  apparently 
fell  from  him.  The  same  evening,  with- 
out any  sort  of  scene  or  storm,  desperately 
alone,  but  not  outcast,  the  young  seminarist 
crossed  the  threshold  of  the  seminary,  traversed 
the  square,  and  entered  a  small  semi-clerical  hotel 
at  the  north-western  corner  of  it. 

"  A  man  of  much  talent  said  once  of  M. 
Renan  : — 

" '  Renan  thinks  like  a  man,  feels  like  a  woman, 
and  acts  like  a  child/  " 

"  Did  he  act  like  a  child,  the  poor  young 
Breton  who  fled  from  St  Sulpice  aghast  because 
he  no  longer  thought  the  lessons  of  his  masters 
all  quite  true  ?  It  was,  perhaps,  a  piece  of 
childish  folly  to  renounce  the  splendid  future 
which  awaited  him  in  his  chosen  path,  to  affront 
extreme  poverty,  without  resources,  without  pros- 
pects, sustained  by  the  sole  impossibility  of 
living  for  aught  else  than  a  conviction.  Those 


56         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


who  think  that  the  hall-mark  of  a  man  is  his 
sincerity  in  regard  to  the  world  and  his  own  soul, 
will  grant  that  on  that  occasion  the  child  showed 
himself  twice  a  man."  1 

1  James  Darmesteter  :  Ernest  Renan.  "  Critique  et  Politique," 
p.  63. 


CHAPTER  VI 


DOMINUS  PARS 

Paris,  Rue  du  Pot-de-Fer 
October  i^th,  1845. 

"  A  T  last,  my  Henriette,  my  dearest  friend,  I 
can  pour  out  all  my  heart,  I  can  tell  you 
all  the  trouble  which  corrodes  my  soul !  The 
last  few  days  count  in  the  record  of  my  life  ; 
perhaps  they  are  the  most  decisive,  certainly  the 
most  painful  I  have  experienced.  So  many 
events  have  crossed  each  other  in  this  narrow 
space  that  the  mere  recital  of  them  will  imply  all 
my  feelings.  And  it  will  console  me  to  tell  you 
everything,  for  here,  now,  my  isolation  is  terrible, 
and  my  lonely,  tired  heart  finds  an  infinite  sweet- 
ness in  resting  upon  yours. 

"  Only  one  word  first,  dear,  of  this  last  vacation ; 
a  sweet  and  cruel  time  for  me.  My  position  was 
of  the  strangest.  To  enjoy  the  companionship  of 
my  kind  mother,  to  wait  on  her,  caress  her,  cheer 
her  by  my  day  dreams,  is  so  delightful  a  pastime  to 
me  that  I  believe  there  is  no  trouble,  no  anxiety, 

57 


58         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


that  I  could  not  forget  in  her  society.  And  then, 
a  peculiar  indefinable  sense  of  well-being  hangs 
about  my  native  place.  All  my  childhood,  so 
simple,  so  pure,  so  heedless,  survives  in  its  at- 
mosphere, and  this  revival  of  my  past  charms  me 
almost  to  tears.  The  life  of  that  country  is  but 
a  common,  vulgar  life,  I  know.  But  there  is  a 
repose  about  it,  a  quiet  well-being,  in  which 
thought  and  feeling,  when  not  prisoned  in  the 
narrow  circle  of  our  daily  round,  are  able  to 
exercise  their  sweet  gift  of  healing.  Ah,  how  I  feel 
to  the  core  that  vanished  sweetness  !  I  am  weak, 
my  dear  Henriette.  I  sometimes  think  I  could 
be  quite  happy  in  a  simple,  common  life  which  I 
should  ennoble  from  within.  Then  I  think  of 
you  and  I  look  higher. 

"  Yet  in  this  mild  and  calm  atmosphere  of 
Treguier,  you  can  easily  see  how  difficult  was  my 
position  with  regard  to  mamma.  She  had  but  the 
faintest  suspicion  of  my  state  of  mind,  and  she 
tried  to  trace  my  secret  thought  under  the  least  of 
my  words  and  actions.  And  I  was  afraid  to  let  her 
see  the  truth  and  yet  I  felt  I  ought  not  to  conceal 
it.  Think  how  I  suffered !  The  necessity  of 
telling  her  all,  the  fear  of  her  cruel  disappoint- 
ment, led  me,  hour  by  hour,  into  almost  contra- 
dictory courses.  And  our  good  mother,  with  a 
disastrous  cleverness,  interpreted  them  all  accord- 


DOMINUS  PARS 


59 


ing  to  the  desire  of  her  heart.  She  would  take 
no  hint,  no  mere  suggestion.  At  last  one  day — 
one  hour — which  I  shall  never  forget,  I  was 
forced  to  be  more  explicit.  I  said  clearly  that 
my  vocation  was  doubtful  .  .  .  that  I  must  exact 
a  delay.  Well,  from  that  hour  she  had  been  more 
calm.  She  is  less  afraid  when  I  speak  of  study- 
ing in  the  Paris  University,  when  I  speak  of  a 
possible  journey  to  Germany.  I  knew  how  to 
turn  all  these  projects  in  harmony  with  her  dearest 
scheme — our  meeting,  the  progress  of  my  studies, 
&c.  Do  not  mention  to  her  that  I  am  at  an  inn  ! 
Ah,  dear  mother,  how  dear  she  is  to  me — my 
greatest  happiness  but  also  my  greatest  trouble. 
I  should  hate  to  be  vulgar  in  any  part  or  parcel 
of  my  inner  nature  ;  but  I  am  sure  that  I  am  not, 
in  my  love  for  her ! 

"  I  arrived  in  Paris  on  the  9th  of  October,  in 
the  evening.  That  same  night  I  slept  at  the  hotel. 
The  next  days  I  passed  with  all  due  gravity  and 
decorum  in  terminating  my  connection  with  St 
Sulpice.  I  was  charmed  by  the  esteem  and  the 
affection  which  the  fathers  showed  me.  My 
Hebrew  professor  has  promised  to  recommend 
me  very  warmly  to  M.  Quatremere:  he  holds  to 
me  as  to  his  favourite  pupil.  I  could  not  have 
imagined  so  much  broadness  of  view  in  the 
strictest  orthodoxy.    They  are  persuaded  that  I 


6o         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


shall  return  to  St  Sulpice,  and, — would  you  believe 
it,  dear  Henriette  ? — I  like  to  think  so  myself, 
and  was  enchanted  to  hear  them  say  so.  Accuse 
me  of  weakness  if  you  like.  I  am  not  of  those 
who  take  a  side,  and  never  lose  hold,  whatever 
they  may  think,  whatever  Science  prove.  And 
Christianity  is  so  large  a  thing,  a  man  may  well 
hold  more  than  one  opinion  concerning  it,  accord- 
ing to  the  different  degrees  of  his  instruction. 
Still,  at  this  moment,  I  do  not  see  how  I  can  in 
conscience  become  a  Catholic  priest. 

"  I  have  seen  Monsieur  Dupanloup :  he  was 
delightful !  He  granted  me  an  interview  of  an 
hour  and  a  half — a  thing  he  never  does.  How 
well  he  understood  me  at  once !  He  did  me  so 
much  good  !  He  replaced  me  in  my  lost  high 
sphere,  whence  these  practical  preoccupations 
had  caused  me  to  fall  in  some  degree.  I 
was  quite  frank  and  explicit  with  him,  and  he 
was  very  pleased  with  me.  I  recognised  the 
superior  mind  in  his  advice,  so  clear  and  to 
the  point.  He  promised  to  do  his  utmost  for 
me.  .  .  . 

"  You  must  let  me  assure  you,  dearest,  that,  say 
what  you  will,  I  cannot  spend  all  this  year  at 
your  expense.  I  have  quite  decided  to  accept 
some  post  which  will  not  encroach  too  much  upon 
my  time  and  may  even  be  useful  to  me.  .  .  . 


DOMINUS  PARS 


61 


u  I  have  been  to  see  the  directors  of  Stanislas 
College.  I  had  the  best  of  references.  Some  of 
my  old  comrades  are  there  and  had  spoken  of  me. 
I  allow  that  I  should  like,  best  of  all,  to  enter  as 
a  teacher  at  Stanislas.  There,  my  dear,  I  should 
be  treated  honourably  and  morally.  Perhaps  you 
do  not  like  the  prospect,  as  the  college  is  directed 
by  ecclesiastics  ;  but  it  is  formed  exactly  on  the 
model  of  the  University.  And  I  have  been  most 
frank.  I  have  explained  to  the  provisor  the 
reason  of  my  leaving  St  Sulpice.  And  think 
what  an  admirable  transition  !  No  one  would  be 
astonished  to  see  me  pass  from  St  Sulpice  to 
Stanislas,  and  no  one  would  be  astonished  to  see 
me  move  on  from  Stanislas  to  another  college 
of  the  university  !  And  mamma  would  be  de- 
lighted :  it  was  one  of  her  ideas." 

Stanislas  is  in  fact  a  Jesuit  college  participating 
in  the  examinations  and  other  advantages  of  the 
lay  public  schools  of  Paris.  In  the  touching  and 
honourable  engagement  which  the  venerable  Order 
of  St  Sulpice  was  fighting  with  an  inexperienced 
governess  in  Poland  for  the  soul  of  Ernest  Renan, 
the  last  rally  had  not  yet  been  sounded.  The 
Church  did  not  by  any  means  despair  of  her 
acolyte.  And  he,  perhaps,  had  never  felt  more 
drawn  towards  the  House  of  God. 

"  I  spend  my  evenings  in  the  church  of  St 


62 


LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


Sulpice,"  he  wrote  to  his  friend,  the  Abbe  Cognat. 1 
.  .  .  There  is  no  more  happiness  for  me  on  earth. 
.  .  .  I  remember  my  mother,  my  little  room,  my 
books,  my  dreams,  my  quiet  walks  at  my  mother's 
side.  .  .  .  All  the  colour  seems  to  have  faded 
out  of  life." 

It  is  probable  that  the  Fathers  counted  on  this 
reaction  and  were  well  aware  that  the  towers  of 
St  Sulpice  never  look  more  noble  than  from  the 
other  side  of  the  square — from  the  windows,  say, 
of  Mademoiselle  Celeste's  stuffy  but  respectable 
small  clerical  hotel.  Nor  can  we  wonder  at  their 
error.  They  knew  their  pupil  in  his  sweet 
humour  and  his  docility,  in  his  attachment  to 
themselves  and  to  the  Church  :  they  knew  him 
as  an  imaginative,  serene,  and  hopeful  child  ;  they 
did  not  recognise  as  yet  that  granite  resistance 
which  underlay  this  graciousness  of  disposition, 
and  which  it  was  impossible  to  undermine.  Un- 
impassioned,  sincere,  curious  above  all  things  of 
the  truth,  Ernest  Renan  was  not  to  be  led  in 
any  path  but  that  he  saw  before  him.  Even 
while  the  reverend  ecclesiastics  of  Stanislas  and 
St  Sulpice  were  putting  their  heads  together  in 
a  charitable  purpose  of  friendly  circumvention, 
Renan  was  writing  to  his  sister  concerning  "  the 

1  Renan's  letters  to  the  Abbe  Cognat,  during  the  years  1845-6, 
are  reprinted  in  the  Appendix  to  his  <£  Souvenirs  de  Jeunesse." 


DOMINUS  PARS 


63 


singularity  of  his  relations  with  them,  which 
afforded  him  the  opportunity  of  making  the  most 
valuable  psychological  observations."  He  was 
interested,  and  touched,  and  sceptical,  and  heart- 
broken, with  equal  sincerity.  The  fathers, 
strangely  enough,  knew  little  of  his  religious 
scruples :  Monsieur  Dupanloup  alone  asserted  that 
they  amounted  to  a  total  loss  of  faith.  Prompted 
by  a  reserve  which  made  him  dread  to  exhibit  in 
public  his  inmost  wound, — and,  perhaps,  inspired 
by  that  morbid  horror  of  the  commonplace  which 
haunted  Renan  throughout  his  youth, — he  kept  to 
himself  the  moral  and  philosophical  origin  of  his 
doubts,  and  put  forward  only  his  scientific  scruples. 
He  was  acutely  conscious  (the  theme  recurs  again 
and  again  in  his  letters),  that  the  recalcitrant 
seminarist  is  rarely  a  heroic  personage.  If  he 
had  to  doubt,  at  least  he  meant  to  doubt  with 
distinction  and  originality. 

So  he  spoke  to  the  astonished  Fathers  of  the 
inexact  philology  of  the  Vulgate,  or  the  erroneous 
date  assigned  by  the  Church  to  the  Book  of 
Daniel.  St  Sulpice  knew  how  to  deal  with  the 
mere  sensuous  backslider;  it  knew  how  to  deplore, 
to  deprecate,  and  if  need  be  to  imprecate,  the 
torments  of  revolt,  the  passionate  despair,  of  a 
Lamennais.  It  could  not  take  these  niceties  of 
scholarship  so  seriously  —  a  mitigated  contact 


64         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


with  reality  would  soon,  it  opined,  bring  the 
fancies  of  a  dreamer  within  bounds. 

And  doubtless  St  Sulpice  counted  also  on  the 
contrast  between  the  warm  kindness  of  the  Church 
and  the  shrewdness  of  the  world,  ever  suspicious 
of  the  unfrocked  clerical.  Monsieur  Dupanloup 
offered  his  purse  to  Renan.  He  can  not  have 
been  quite  pleased  to  hear  that,  out  of  her  savings, 
Mademoiselle  Renan  had  already  sent  her  brother 
a  sum  of  eight  and  forty  pounds.  Moreover,  by 
some  prodigy  of  feminine  ingenuity,  the  little 
governess  at  Zamocz  had  obtained  for  her  brother 
letters  of  introduction  to  the  most  eminent  scholars 
of  the  day.  She  had  thus  made  Renan  in  some 
measure  independent  of  the  Church. 

The  worst  of  his  trial  was  now,  in  truth,  over 
for  Renan.  His  great  act  of  resolution  had,  as  it 
were,  cleared  the  air.  There  was  no  more  com- 
promising. Like  many  naturally  undecided  per- 
sons, Renan  pursued  tenaciously  a  course  of 
conduct  once  adopted,  knowing  in  what  an  eddy 
of  ceaseless  irresolution  he  would  be  flung  by 
another  change  of  front.  Those  who  met  him 
at  the  moment  of  his  secession  from  St  Sulpice 
observed  in  him  none  of  the  poignant  anxiety  of 
the  Christian  who  feels  his  faith  slip  from  him. 
He  had  the  look  of  a  young  philosopher,  calm, 
resolute,  smiling,  who  sees  new  immense  horizons 


DOMINUS  PARS 


65 


open  before  him.  For  the  moment  he  was  pre- 
occupied by  his  practical  affairs  which  he  took 
seriously,  although  not  tragically. 

It  is  characteristic  of  Renan's  complex,  curious 
and  quiet-tempered  nature  that  his  change  of 
opinion  provoked  in  him  no  aversion  towards  his 
lost  ideal.    He  did  not  desire  to  burn  what  he 
had  once  adored.    He  went  on  adoring  with  a 
difference.    He  maintained  his  fealty  to  M.  Le 
Hir  as  a  spiritual  superior  and  chose  him  for  his 
confessor — for  this  strange  apostate  continued  to 
confess  himself  and  to  receive  absolution.  "It 
does  me  good,  and  is  a  great  consolation.    I  will 
confess  myself  to  you  when  you  are  in  orders," 
he  writes  to  his  friend.    He  was  on  terms  of 
intimacy — almost  of  unction — with  the  Abb& 
Gratry,  the  Superior  of  Stanislas.    For  Renan 
entered  Stanislas,  as  St  Sulpice  intended  him 
to  do,  much  to  the  distrust  and  discomfort  of 
Henriette.    The  young  usher,  at  six-and-twenty 
pounds  a  year,  admitted  to  terms  of  such  flattering 
familiarity  with  his  directors,  saw  Stanislas  at 
first  through  rose-coloured  spectacles.  .  .  .  Henri- 
ette's  fears  are  a  mythical  survival,  interesting  to 
the  scientific  observer. 

"  Because  it  is  a  College  of  Jes — -  .  .  .  Oh,  my 
dear  Henriette,  is  it  possible  that  a  clever  woman 
in  the  nineteenth  century  can  amuse  herself  with 

e 


66         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


such  nursery  tales?  In  truth,  I  myself  am  no 
partisan  of  the  Society  :  in  all  the  force  of  the 
term,  I  do  not  love  it.  But  from  the  bottom  of 
my  heart  I  laugh  at  the  fantastic  imagination 
which  sees  in  it  a  sort  of  ogre-scarecrow  to  frighten 
babes  with.  It  is  a  really  remarkable  item  of 
psychology,  a  product  of  the  faculty  which 
gave  us  Bluebeard  and  other  tales  of  wonder, 
Tis  the  love  of  mystery,  the  human  need  of  the 
fantastic  which  has  produced  the  legend  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus."  All  the  same,  a  few  days  later 
our  young  psychologist  left  Stanislas,  as  he  had 
left  St  Sulpice.  He  had  been  very  happy  with 
the  Jesuits.  But  his  lucidity  saw  through  their 
judicious  wiles.  "  Tis  a  duty  to  go.  I  have 
made  a  great  sacrifice  :  it  would  be  absurd  to 
hesitate  before  a  small  one." 

When,  therefore,  Renan  was  required  to  wear 
a  cassock  and  conform,  merely  in  outward  things 
of  course,  to  his  ecclesiastical  environment,  he 
sighed — but  went  away.  "  They  were  very  nearly 
taking  me  again  in  their  net,"  he  wrote  to  Henri- 
ette.  But  he  left  them,  shut  upon  him  with  a 
pang  of  regret  the  door  of  the  House  of  the  Lord, 
and  sought  that  world  of  laymen  which  appeared 
to  him  so  sordid,  almost  immoral,  and  unfriendly. 
"  For  I  need  an  atmosphere  of  moral  feeling,"  he 
remarked  to  his  sister.    What  he  needed  still 


DOMINUS  PARS 


67 


more  was  an  atmosphere  of  independence,  in 
which  to  work  out  his  own  salvation.  That  at 
least  he  found  in  the  school  for  young  gentlemen 
where  he  was  admitted  as  parlour-boarder — or 
rather  as  a  sort  of  pupil-teacher,  since  he  received 
his  board  in  return  for  the  lessons  he  gave. 

The  house  was  in  a  steep  street  of  the  Montagne 
Sainte  Genevieve,  known  to-day  as  the  Rue  de 
l'Abbe  de  l'Epee.  In  those  days  it  was  called 
the  Rue  des  deux  Eglises.  Renan  must  often 
have  smiled  as  he  read  the  name.  For  God 
had  led  him  indeed  into  the  Street  of  Two 
Churches,  nor  was  the  second,  in  his  eyes,  less 
holy  than  the  first. 

"  Long  ago,"  he  writes  to  the  Abbe  Cognat, 
"  already  when  I  went  up  to  the  altar  to  receive 
the  tonsure,  I  was  tormented  by  terrible  doubts. 
But  my  superior  urged  me  on,  and  I  had  always 
heard  that  it  was  my  duty  to  obey.  So  I 
went  up,  but  God  is  my  witness  that  in  the 
intention  of  my  heart,  I  took  for  my  portion  that 
Truth  which  is  the  hidden  God  !  I  dedicated 
myself  to  her  quest,  for  her  sake  I  renounced  all 
profane  motives  and  ambitions — nor  shall  I  con- 
sider myself  false  to  my  vow  until,  abandoning 
my  soul  to  vulgar  cares,  I  content  myself  with 
the  material  aims  which  suffice  to  worldly  men. 
Till  then,  I  can  repeat,  Doniinus  pars.  .  .  .  Man 


68         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


can  never  be  sufficiently  sure  of  himself  to  swear 
unwavering  fealty  to  a  given  system,  though  at 
the  moment. of  his  vow  he  hold  it  true.  All  he 
may  do  is  to  dedicate  himself  to  Truth,  whatso- 
ever she  be,  wheresoever  she  lead  him,  no  matter 
what  the  sacrifice  she  may  demand." 


PART  II 


CHAPTER  I 

NEW  IDEAS 

TN  the  first  days  of  November  1845  Ernest 
Renan  entered  on  his  duties  at  M.  Crouzet's 
school.  They  were  not  stimulating,  they  were 
not  inspiring,  but  they  left  him  his  whole  day 
free  for  work.  During  some  two  hours,  of  an 
evening,  he  superintended  the  studies  of  seven 
youths  who  followed  the  classes  of  the  Lyc6e 
Henri  IV.  In  return,  without  diminishing  his 
sisters  little  store,  he  received  a  place  at  table 
and  a  small  room  to  himself.  His  wants  were 
supplied,  his  liberty  was  complete,  his  leisure  was 
ample ;  save  for  his  state  of  mind— but  that  is 
everything ! — he  might  have  been  happy.  Alas, 
he  was  dull  and  sad.  The  world,  in  his  eyes, 
appeared  terribly  mediocre :  a  desert,  tediously 
overpopulate,  a  shabby  wilderness  of  fifth-rate 
souls.  He  felt  numb  and  shaken  as  one  who 
has  had  a  great  fall.  A  month  ago  he  had  been 
almost  a  priest,  belonging  by  implication  to  a 
superior  order.    He  had  been  appointed  professor 

71 


72         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 

in  the  Archbishop's  College."  He  had  been  re- 
cognised as  a  Semitic  scholar.  And  behold,  he 
was  little  better  than  an  usher  in  M.  Crouzet's 
school. 

For  more  than  two  months  he  kept  his  situa- 
tion a  secret  from  his  mother.  By  a  pious 
fraud  he  continued  to  "  paint  the  future,"  to  speak 
of  Stanislas.  But  too  many  persons  counted 
on  Mme.  Renan's  influence  over  her  devoted 
boy  for  his  position  to  remain  a  secret.  Poor 
loving  woman,  she  did  not  attempt  to  persuade 
him  !  She  wrote  him  heart-broken  letters.  He, 
her  delicate  lad,  her  pride,  her  darling,  to  think 
he  was  "  on  the  streets  ! "  for  so  she  phrased  it. 
"  You  know,  dear,  even  a  mouse  in  your  room 
used  to  keep  you  awake.  You  were  never  used 
to  hardship  ! 

"  O  Joseph,  mon  aimable 
Fils  affable, 
Les  betes  t'ont  devore  ! 55 

In  those  first  dull  November  days  at  M. 
Crouzet's  school,  something  of  the  melancholy 
which  had  tarnished  all  things  for  the  young 
seminarist  of  St  Nicholas  hung  again  over  Ernest 
Renan,  and  menaced  him  with  that  creeping 
nostalgia  so  deadly  to  the  Breton.  His  letters 
to  Henriette  are  steeped  in  disappointment.  .  .  , 


NEW  IDEAS 


73 


"  Now  that  I  see  them  at  close  quarters,  men 
are  less  refined,  less  intellectual  than  I  had 
imagined  them.  ...  I  feel  lost  in  this  cold 
world,  incurious  of  the  Divine.  .  .  .  Since  Chris- 
tianity is  not  true,  nothing  interests  me  or 
appears  worth  my  attention/'  What  was  the 
use  of  striving  and  struggling  in  this  unim- 
portant throng  of  mortals  ?  "  faime  mieux  ne 
pas  mentir  et  caresser  ma  petite  pensJe"  he  wrote 
to  the  Abbe  Cognat  in  a  phrase  too  charming 
to  translate. 

Renan  had  no  longer  any  hope  of  regaining 
his  faith.  .  .  .  Faith  is  a  sentiment,  and,  once 
lost,  there  is  no  regaining  it  by  evidence.  .  .  . 
Doubt  is  an  act  of  reason  in  which  evidence  is 
everything.  Once  we  judge  religious  history  by 
the  ordinary  rules  of  scientific  criticism,  the 
authenticity  of  Catholic  tradition  can  no  longer 
compel  our  assent.  Renan  continued  to  read  the 
Scriptures.  But  the  Bible,  read  as  any  other 
book,  appears  merely  a  collection  of  Oriental 
masterpieces,  beautiful  as  poetry,  valuable  as 
history,  but  holding  no  peculiar  promise  for 
our  souls.  He  looked  into  the  empty  heavens, 
saw  no  Christ  on  His  throne  there,  and  brooded 
with  an  obstinacy  which  had  a  sort  of  pleasure 
in  it  over  the  completeness  of  his  desolation. 

This  delectatio  morosa  is  dangerous  to  a  con- 


74         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


templative  temperament.  That  way,  if  not  mad- 
ness, melancholia  lies ;  the  disease  is  potential  in 
many  Celtic  constitutions.  F'or  some  weeks, 
Ernest  Renan,  so  like  his  mother,  felt  his  father's 
dull  and  sluggish  blood  stir  ominously  at  his 
heart.  But  a  fortunate  circumstance  shattered 
his  lethargy.  A  new  friendship  absorbed  him. 
The  oldest  of  his  pupils,  a  young  M.  Berthelot, 
some  eighteen  years  of  age,  was  studying  ad- 
vanced mathematics  and  philosophy  at  Henri  IV. 
They  lodged  on  the  same  landing. 

"  It  was  in  November  1845  that  I  first  set  eyes 
on  Ernest  Renan.  He  was  four  years  older  than 
I,  but  he  had,  perhaps,  even  less  experience  of 
life — if  such  a  term  may  be  used  of  young  men, 
the  one  eighteen,  the  other  two-and-twenty.  He 
had  just  left  the  Seminary— not  without  some 
vague  inclination  towards  a  possible  resumption 
of  the  sacerdotal  cloth.  His  gentle,  serious  bear- 
ing, his  taste  for  things  intellectual  and  moral, 
pleased  me  at  once,  and  we  became  friends." 1 

"  We  had  the  same  religion,"  says  Renan 
simply.2  "  And  that  religion  was  the  worship  of 
Truth." 

Truth  is  a  diamond  of  many  facets,  and  the 

1  Correspondance  Berthelot — Renan.  Revue  de  Paris  :  1 5  Juillet 
1897. 

2  Discours  et  Conferences,  p.  231. 


NEW  IDEAS 


75 


young  men  had  seen  her  at  different  angles. 
Each  knew  most  things  the  other  did  not  know. 
Renan  was  already  expert  in  theology,  philosophy, 
philology  and  history.  But  young  Berthelot  re- 
vealed to  him  a  new  world  of  vaster  vistas  and 
more  precise  perspectives  : — the  magnificent  certi- 
tudes of  physical  and  natural  science.  Forty  years 
after  those  first  conversations  in  their  attics  of  the 
Rue  des  Deux  Eglises,  fragments  and  echoes  of 
those  midnight  marvels  linger  still  in  the  mind  of 
Renan. 

"  How  infinitely  the  atomic  theories  of  the 
chemist  and  crystallographer  surpass  that  vague 
notion  of  Matter,  which  verifies  scholastic  philo- 
sophy !  .  .  ,1 

"  Think  of  knowing  that  our  earth  is  a  ball 
some  three  thousand  leagues  in  diameter  .  .  , 
that  the  sun,  up  there,  is  thirty-eight  millions 
of  leagues  away,  and  that  it  is  one  million 
five  hundred  thousand  times  larger  than  the 
earth  ! "  2 

If  Spinoza  was  a  God  -  intoxicated  man, 
Renan  was  a  man  intoxicated  by  the  splendour 
of  the  universe  !  There  are  stars  whose 
light  falls  through  space  ten  thousand  years 
before  it  reaches  us,  falling  at  the  rate  of  over 

1  Discours  et  Conferences p.  16. 

2  Feuilles  D£tach£es$p.  156. 


76         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


thirty  millions  of  leagues  in  seven  minutes ! 
There  are  suns,  larger  than  ours,  and  perhaps 
whole  solar  systems,  in  the  formless  white  blurs 
that  film  the  skies  on  cloudless  nights.  The 
heavens  proclaim,  indeed,  the  glory  of  the 
Eternal ;  and  Renan  knew  how  great  a  tempta- 
tion Job  resisted  when  he  cried,  "  I  have  seen  the 
moon  advance  in  her  majesty,  O  God,  and  I 
have  not  bowed  the  knee  ! " 

As  the  last  shreds  of  his  faith  fell  from  before 
him,  lo !  in  their  place  he  discovered  the  whole 
unspeakable  mystery  of  the  Cosmos.  So,  with  the 
first  elements  of  astronomy  and  physics,  Renan 
learned  that  passionate  devotion  to  the  universe 
which  engrosses  the  whole  mind,  and  makes  all 
private  sorrow  a  thing  of  slight  account.  Already 
he  might  have  exclaimed  with  Marcus  Aurelius, 
"  All  that  suiteth  thee,  O  Cosmos,  suiteth  me ! " 
He  was  in  very  truth  a  "  citizen  of  the  great 
city,"  a  conscient  atom  of  the  whole.  The  world 
was  too  vast,  our  span  of  years  too  short,  the 
sum  of  science  attainable  too  tremendous,  for  life, 
however  sad,  to  be  adjudged  a  failure.  Yes,  in 
1846  he  was  already  the  Renan  who,  years  later, 
wrote  of  Amiel :  "  The  man  wTho  has  time  to 
keep  a  private  diary  has  never  understood  the 
immensity  of  the  universe.  There  is  so  much 
to  learn  !    In  face  of  this  colossal  piece  of  work 


NEW  IDEAS 


77 


how  can  we  stop  to  consume  our  own  hearts,  to 
doubt,  to  repine?  .  .  .  My  friend  M.  Berthelot 
would  have  his  hands  full,  had  he  a  hundred 
consecutive  lives,  nor  find  in  any  one  of  them 
the  time  to  write  about  himself!  .  .  .  Everything 
has  to  be  done,  or  done  all  over  again,  in  natural 
and  social  science.  When  we  feel  ourselves 
called  to  labour  at  this  infinite  task,  we  are  too 
busy  to  pause  and  brood  over  the  little  private 
melancholies  we  may  fall  in  with  by  the  way."1 
.  .  .  "  When  I  think  of  the  unique  pair  of  friends 
we  were,"  he  says  elsewhere,  "  I  see  before  me 
two  young  priests  in  their  surplices,  walking  arm 
in  arm.  We  should  have  blushed  to  have  asked 
each  other  a  favour,  or  even  a  piece  of  advice. 
Neither  of  us  was  greatly  occupied  with  himself, 
and  neither  of  us  was  greatly  occupied  with  the 
other.  Our  friendship  consisted  in  what  we 
learned  together."2 

Indeed  they  learned  many  things  together,  but 
they  learned  many  things  apart.  As  time  went 
on  M.  Berthelot  was  drawn  more  and  more 
exclusively  into  the  sphere  of  physics,  and  especi- 
ally of  chemistry,  as  we  all  know,  to  our  admira- 
tion. Semitic  philology  continued  to  engross 
M.  Renan.     He  wrote  to  his  sister :  "  I  have 


1  Feuilles  Ditachies^  p.  359. 

2  Souvenirs^  p.  339. 


78         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


so  many  new  and  just  ideas  !  I  am  throwing 
all  my  heart  into  my  work — all  I  know  and  all 
I  am — and  I  have  the  instinct  of  success." 

His  canvas  was  the  series  of  lectures  which  he 
had  delivered  the  preceding  year  at  St  Sulpice, 
and  which  the  Abbe  Le  Hir  strongly  urged  him 
to  publish.  The  book  was  to  be  a  Hebrew 
grammar.  But,  in  the  hands  of  this  ardent 
young  thinker,  philology  became  a  new  instru- 
ment of  psychology.  For  the  character  of  a 
nation  is  transfixed  in  its  language,  and  a  Hebrew 
grammar  is  a  diagram  of  the  Semitic  soul.  In 
the  speech  of  the  Jew  or  the  Arab,  as  in  his 
nature,  you  will  find  something  irreductible  and 
stubborn,  a  dignified  simplicity,  a  non-existence 
of  the  finer  shades ;  a  something  monotonous, 
which  recalls  the  desert  in  its  immense  unifor- 
mity. So  theorised  young  M.  Renan,  in  that 
general  history  of  Semitic  languages  which  was 
to  introduce  him  to  the  world  of  science. 

The  first  sketch  of  this  important  work, 
presented  in  manuscript  to  the  Academy  of  In- 
scriptions in  1847,  by  a  young  man  of  four-and- 
twenty,  a  pupil-teacher  in  a  school  for  boys, 
obtained  the  Prix  Volney,  one  of  the  most 
important  distinctions  awarded  by  the  Institute 
of  France. 


NEW  IDEAS 


79 


Thus,  barely  two  years  after  leaving  St 
Sulpice,  Renan  saw  a  new  career  open  before 
him.  He  continued  to  pass  his  University  ex- 
aminations :  he  was  successively  Bachelier  and 
Licenci6.  In  1 847  he  took  his  degree  as  Agr6ge 
de  Philosophie,  that  is  to  say,  Fellow  of  the  Univer- 
sity, and,  in  consequence,  he  was  offered  the  Pro- 
fessorship of  Philosophy  in  the  Lycee  of  Vendome. 
Here,  and  later,  —  during  the  long  vacation  at 
St  Malo, — Renan  occupied  his  leisure  by  a  thesis 
on  Averroes  which  was  to  procure  him  his  doctor's 
degree.  Half  convinced  by  so  much  success,  his 
mother  let  herself  accept  some  consolation.  Her 
"  fils  affable  "  was  still  her  "  fils  affable  "  :  amiable, 
studious,  gifted,  as  of  old.  He  had  come  back  to 
live  with  her.  His  grave  morality  seemed  almost 
orthodox.  No  scandal  had  attended  his  secession 
from  the  priesthood.  "  My  mother  shows  the 
truest  liberality  of  mind,"  Renan  wrote  to  M. 
Berthelot  in  1 847  ;  "she  fully  approves  my  system, 
which  is  never  to  express,  by  word  or  deed,  either 
affection  or  antipathy  for  the  profession  which 
might  have  been  my  own.  I  soon  brought  her  to 
see  my  point  of  view.  And  indeed  we  have  many 
a  piquant  conversation  on  this  head."  But  despite 
the  charm  of  home,  despite  his  native  air,  Renan 
was  not  happy  in  the  narrow  provincial  circle 


8o         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


which  he  had  re-entered.  He  missed  the  intel- 
lectual stimulus  of  Paris.  He  was  glad  when 
a  small  temporary  appointment, —  as  assistant 
master  in  the  Lycee  of  Versailles — permitted  him 
to  return  to  the  capital  and  resume  his  interrupted 
studies. 


CHAPTER  II 


1848 

THE  father  of  M.  Berthelot  was  a  doctor,  an 
intellectual  man,  above  all,  a  benevolent 
man.  His  practice  was  in  a  poor  neighbourhood  ; 
of  modest  origin  himself,  he  was  interested  in 
many  philanthropic  schemes.  He  was  a  firm  Re- 
publican. "  The  first  I  had  seen,"  wrote  Renan, 
who  barely  could  remember  his  father  and  his 
uncles.  Opposed  to  the  bourgeois  spirit  of  the 
Monarchy  of  July,  an  enthusiastic  believer  in 
the  Socialist  transformation  of  society,  Dr 
Berthelot  influenced  his  son  and,  through  him, 
the  ever-impressionable  Ernest  Renan.  .  .  .  Yet 
all  through  the  beginning  of  '48,  immersed  in  his 
studies,  the  young  scholar  had  listened  to  his 
friend's  gospel  with  a  somewhat  vacant  ear.  He 
was  engrossed  by  an  essay  on  the  study  of  Greek 
in  Mediaeval  Europe,  which  appeared  to  him  more 
immediately  important.  In  all  things,  always, 
he  found  it  hard  to  take  a  side.  He  distrusted 
extremes.    His  sense  of  the  relativity  of  appear- 


82         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


ances  debarred  him  from  a  passionate  conviction  in 
politics  no  less  than  in  religion.  Moreover,  if  he 
was  by  opinion  a  Liberal,  by  temperament  Renan 
was  Conservative.  A  natural  love  for  the  Past, 
a  natural  dread  of  innovation,  hampered  him  in 
the  sphere  of  political  reform  : 

"  I  shall  never  break  many  lances  for  this  sort 
of  thing,"  he  wrote  to  M.  Berthelot,  in  September 
1847. 

Then  the  Revolution  broke  out  in  February. 
The  King  and  his  family  went  into  exile.  There 
was  a  riot  in  May.  One  morning  Ernest  Renan 
had  to  climb  a  barricade  in  order  to  reach  the 
College  of  France.  He  climbed  it  and  arrived  in 
due  time  at  the  Sanscrit  lecture-room  ;  but  there 
was  no  lecture  that  day,  and  behold  !  the  College 
was  full  of  soldiers  !  The  young  scholar  sighed 
and  continued  his  walk,  in  order  to  study  Sanscrit 
at  M.  Burnouf  s  private  house.  Civil  war  reddened 
the  streets  in  June.  Ernest  Renan  awoke  in 
earnest  and  turned  all  his  mind  to  the  prob- 
lems of  Socialism. 

I  know  no  page  in  Flaubert's  Education  Senti- 
mentale  which  gives  a  more  vivid  picture  of  a 
political  massacre  than  we  find  in  some  of 
Renan's  letters  to  his  absent  sister.  The  dreamer, 
startled  from  his  dream,  sees  the  dreadful  reality 
before  him  with  a  horrified  acuteness. 


1848 


33 


2$th  June  1848. 
"  Frightful  sight !    The  whole  day  we  heard 
nothing  but  the  whistling  of  bullets  and  the  clang 
of  the  tocsin.  .  . 

2&J1  June. 

"  The  evening  and  last  night  were  worse  than 
ever.  There  was  a  massacre  at  the  Gate  of  St 
Jacques,  another  at  the  Fontainebleau  Gate.  I 
spare  you  details.  The  St  Bartholomew  offers 
nothing  like  them.  There  must  be  in  human 
nature  something  naturally  cannibal  which  bursts 
out  at  certain  moments.  As  for  me,  I  would 
willingly  have  fought  with  the  Garde  Nationale 
until,  in  their  turn,  the  guards  became  the 
murderers.  No  doubt  they  are  guilty,  these 
poor  mad  insurrectionaries  who  shed  their  blood 
and  know  not  what  they  ask — but  are  they  not 
guiltier  who,  by  system,  have  deadened  in  them 
every  human  feeling  ?  " 

1st  July. 

"The  storm  is  over,  If  in  such  a  state  of 
things  it  were  permissible  to  appeal  to  the  artistic 
sense,  I  would  call  the  Paris  of  these  last  days 
the  strangest,  the  most  indescribable  of  great 
sights.  A  few  hours  after  the  fighting  was  over  I 
visited  the  field  of  the  combat.      Unless  you 


84         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


have  witnessed  such  a  thing,  my  dear,  you  cannot 
imagine  the  great  scenes  of  humanity.  In  the 
Rue  St  Martin,  in  the  Rue  St  Antoine,  and  in 
the  Rue  St  Jacques,  between  the  Pantheon  and 
the  Quays,  there  was  not  a  single  house  but  was 
riddled  with  cannon-ball.  Some  of  them  were 
perforated  to  sheer  open  work  !  The  fronts  of 
the  houses,  all  the  windows,  were  pierced  through 
and  through  with  bullets — wide  streaks  of  blood, 
broken  and  abandoned  guns,  marked  the  places 
where  the  fight  had  been  the  fiercest.  Built  with 
a  marvellous  art,  and  constructed,  not  as  they 
used  to  be  with  heaps  of  cobblestone,  but  with 
the  large  flagstones  of  the  footpath,  the  barricades, 
with  their  projecting  and  retreating  angles,  had  a 
look  of  fortresses.  There  was  one  every  fifty 
paces.  The  Place  de  la  Bastille  was  the  most 
frightful  chaos  :  all  the  trees  cut  down  or  bent 
and  twisted  by  the  cannon  balls ;  on  one  side 
whole  houses  demolished  or  still  in  flames  ;  on 
another,  veritable  towers  of  defence,  built  out  of 
beams  of  timber,  overturned  carriages,  and  heaps 
of  stones.  In  the  middle  of  all  that,  a  crowd, 
dizzy  and  half  out  of  its  mind  ;  soldiers  worn  out 
with  fatigue,  asleep  on  the  pavement,  almost 
under  the  feet  of  the  people.  The  rage  of  the 
vanquished  disguised  under  an  affected  calm ;  the 
disorder  of  the  conquerors  opening  a  path  through 


1848 


85 


the  demolished  barricades — the  public  pity  craving 
alms  and  lint  for  the  wounded  ;  all  combined  in 
a  spectacle  of  the  sublimest  originality,  in  which 
the  whole  gamut  of  humanity  was  heard  in 
an  admirable  discord :  man,  face  to  face  with 
man,  naked,  without  disguise,  with  nothing  but 
his  primitive  instincts." 

16th  July, 

"  Horror  of  exact  reprisals  !  I  am  always  for 
the  massacred,  even  though  they  be  guilty.  The 
National  Guard  has  been  guilty  of  atrocities  I 
scarcely  dare  recount. 

"  After  the  battle  was  over,  posted  on  the 
terrace  of  the  Ecole  des  Mines,  they  amused 
themselves  by  "  potting M  at  their  leisure,  as  a 
form  of  recreation,  the  passers-by  in  the  adjacent 
streets,  where  the  thoroughfare  was  still  open. 
That  may  have  been  the  last  flicker  of  the  fury 
of  the  fray.  But  what  is  awful  to  think  of,  is  the 
hecatomb  of  prisoners  sacrificed  several  days  later. 
During  whole  afternoons  I  have  heard  the  cease- 
less firing  in  the  Luxembourg  Gardens — and  yet 
the  fighting  was  over !  The  sound  and  the 
thoughts  it  suggested,  exasperated  me  to  such 
a  degree  that  I  determined  to  see  for  myself,  so  I 
went  and  called  on  one  of  my  friends  whose 
windows  overlook  the  gardens.    It  was  too  true. 


86         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 

If  I  did  not  see  the  murderers  with  my  own  eyes, 
I  saw  what  was  worse,  what  I  never  can  forget, 
and  what,  if  I  did  not  try  to  lift  myself  above 
personal  sentiments,  would  leave  in  my  soul  an 
everlasting  hate.  .  .  .  The  unhappy  prisoners 
were  packed  in  the  garrets  of  the  Palace,  under 
the  leads,  in  the  stifling  heat  of  the  roof.  Every 
now  and  then  one  of  them  would  thrust  his  head 
out  of  the  dormer  window,  for  a  breath  of  air. 
Each  head  served  as  a  target  for  the  soldiers 
in  the  garden  below — they  never  missed  their 
aim !  After  that,  I  say  the  middle  class  is 
capable  of  the  massacres  of  the  Terror  !  " 

ist  July. 

"  I  am  not  a  Socialist.  I  am  convinced  that 
none  of  the  theories  of  the  hour  is  destined  to 
triumph,  in  its  actual  form.  A  system — a  narrow,  a 
partial  thing  by  its  very  essence — can  never  realise 
itself.  The  system  is  a  burgeon  which  must 
burst  its  sheath  in  order  to  become  a  truth, 
universally  recognised,  universally  applied.  .  .  . 
I  am  a  Progressist,  that  is  all.  ...  I  persist  in 
believing  that  from  petty  passion  to  petty  passion, 
from  personal  ambition  to  personal  ambition, 
through  misfortune,  through  crime  and  bloodshed, 
we  are  none  the  less  in  the  act  of  a  great  transfor- 
mation for  the  greater  good  of  humanity." 


1848 


87 


\6th  July, 

"  The  great  births  of  humanity  should  be  seen 
from  afar.  We  see  the  apparition  of  Christianity 
as  something  exclusively  pure,  sacred,  and  super- 
natural. .  .  .  And  yet  what  sects,  how  mad, 
monstrous,  and  immoral ! — accompanied,  and  were 
even  confounded  with  that  white  and  beautiful 
doctrine !  .  ,  e  We  also  have  our  gnostics  ! "  .  .  . 

2nd  August. 

"  Adieu,  dear,  excellent  Henriette  ;  think  often 
of  your  brother.    Never  despair  of  France  !  " 1 

I  know  no  more  curious  moment  of  psychology 
than  the  book  in  which  Renan  attempted  to 
answer  the  problems  posed  by  the  movement  of 
1848.  The  immense  volume  is  as  young  as  a 
primrose,  full  of  the  joy  of  life,  full  of  energy, 
charity,  hope  —  above  all,  full  of  faith.  The 
crowded,  living,  voluntary  pages  stretch  out  their 
hundred  arms  to  the  future  like  some  monstrous 
Indian  god,  who  needs  innumerable  hands  to 
bestow  with  and  to  beckon,  to  bless  with  and 
to  curse,  and  in  whom  the  vital  principle  is  too 
abundant  for  symmetry  or  grace.  UAvenir  de 
la  Science,  is  our  young  priest's  first  sermon, 
heavier,  more  crammed  with  matter  than  those 
1  Lettres  de  48.    Revue  de  Paris,  15  Avril  1896. 


88         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


we  are  accustomed  to  from  his  golden  lips  ;  full, 
not  only  of  his  own  ideas  but  of  the  theories  of  his 
time  and  his  environment.  The  multiple,  hetero- 
geneous masterpiece  takes  for  its  text  the  mystic 
words  of  the  gospel,  Unum  est  necessarium.  But 
this  one  thing  needful  is  the  Infinite — the  Ideal, 
identic  in  its  essence,  whatever  be  the  form  in  which 
it  appears  to  us: — philosophy,  science,  poetry,  art, 
moral  beauty,  moral  strength,  or  mere  natural 
loveliness,  no  less  divine.  To  recombine  these 
different  elements — to  trace  these  divergent  rays 
to  their  common  centre,  which  is  God,  should  be 
the  chief  end  of  knowledge.  The  future  of 
science  is  a  new  religion,  to  be  founded,  not 
on  abstract  reasoning,  not  on  any  pretended 
revelation  from  on  high,  but  on  the  most 
patient,  the  most  critical,  the  minutest  study 
of  all  the  material  profusely  strewn  around 
us.  Penetrate  matter  to  find  the  secret  soul  in 
it !  The  study  of  science  is  still  the  service 
of  God.  Such  is  the  teaching  of  LAvenir  de 
la  Science. 

"  I  am  convinced  there  is  a  science  of  the 
Origin  of  Man  which  will  be  constructed  one 
day,  not  from  mere  ratiocination  and  hypothesis, 
but  from  the  results  of  scientific  research.  He 
who  shall  contribute  to  the  solving  of  this  problem 
— though  his  test  be  imperfect,  will  do  more  for 


1848 


89 


true  philosophy  than  he  had  achieved  by  fifty 
years  of  metaphysics." 

Even  while  Renan  was  writing  these  lines  a 
young  naturalist  of  much  the  same  way  of  think- 
ing was  classing  his  specimens  and  comparing  his 
notes.  Some  ten  years  later,  we  read  the  Origin 
of  Species,  A  reaction  against  the  vague  and  void 
official  spiritualism  of  his  day,  inclined  philosophy 
to  draw  its  conclusions  from  the  exact  results  of 
science.  The  tide  has  now  turned  so  far  in  this 
direction  that  we  forget  the  originality,  in  1848,  of 
doctrines  which  at  present  appear  the  merest  com- 
mon-sense. In  1897  all  our  young  philosophers 
are  historians,  or  philologists,  or  physiologists,  or 
students  of  natural  or  social  science.  But,  fifty 
years  ago,  Philosophy  was  much  too  great  a  lady 
to  do  any  useful  work  at  all.  She  broidered 
her  metaphysics  in  an  ivory  tower  among  the 
clouds. 

"  Believe  me,"  said  Renan,  "  your  true  philo- 
sopher is  the  philologist,  the  student  of  myths, 
the  critic  of  social  constitutions.  By  the  subtle 
study  of  speech  we  remount  the  stream  of  time 
till  we  reach  almost  the  source,  till  we  come 
within  hail  of  primitive  man.  By  comparative 
grammar  we  touch  our  first  ancestors  ;  by  com- 
parative mythology  we  understand  their  soul, 
by  social  science  we  watch  their  development. 


90        LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


Every  speech,  every  myth  or  legend,  every  form 
of  social  organisation  from  the  humblest  to  the 
most  august,  ought  to  be  compared  and  classified. 
The  man  who  could  thus  evoke  the  origins  of  Chris- 
tianity would  write  the  most  important  book  of  the 
century.  How  I  envy  it  him  !  Should  I  live  and 
do  well,  I  mean  that  book  to  be  the  task  of  my 
maturity." 1 

Science  is  thus  an  instrument  of  religion,  nay, 
more,  a  religion  in  herself,  modest  but  veracious, 
never  going  back  from  her  word.  The  faith  of 
the  chosen  few,  must  she  remain  incommunicable 
to  the  mass  ?  How  can  a  religion  exclude  nine- 
tenths  of  mankind  ?  If  intellectual  culture  were 
but  a  grace  the  more,  but  an  added  enjoyment, 
it  might  well  remain  the  privilege  of  the  elect,  for 
man  has  no  right  to  happiness.  But  once  we  admit 
that  science  is  a  religion — a  temple  where  faith 
and  truth  join  hands — how  shall  we  forbid  the 
threshold  to  those  who  chiefly  need  a  religion  ? 
Shall  we  look  upon  the  poor  barbarians  as  a 
necessary  refuse  of  waste  matter?  Shall  we 
consider  only  them  human  who  know  ?  "I  have 
seen  the  massacres  of  June.  I  have  repulsed  in  my 
own  heart  the  instinctive  wish  that  the  barbarians 
might  perish.  Shame  on  such  a  thought!  There 
must  be  no  more  barbarians ! 

1  Avenir,  p.  278. 


9i 


"  Yet  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  the  many  are  to 
be  induced  to  work  out  their  own  salvation.  How 
shall  we  make  a  turbulent  majority  choose  the 
better  part  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  does  not 
prefer  it,  thinks  it  tiresome,  prefers  the  pothouse 
and  the  barricade  ?  The  ancients  had  convenient 
means  to  this  end  :  augurs,  oracles,  Egerias,  who 
arranged  the  truth  in  a  way  understanded  of  the 
people.  Others  have  had  recourse  to  armies.  .  .  . 
It  is  very  clear  that  Science  will  none  of  these. 
It  is  much  less  clear,  however,  by  what  miracle 
she  is  to  descend  upon  and  illuminate  the  recal- 
citrant mass  of  the  ignorant.  .  .  . 

"  Above  all  let  us  never  dream  that  Science  must 
descend  to  the  level  of  people.  A  cheap  science, 
an  easy  science,  a  popular  science,  is  the  most 
useless  of  catch-words.  Science  must  be  serious, 
difficult,  comprehensible  only  to  her  own  adepts, 
in  her  more  abstruse  and  secret  recesses.  But 
by  the  diffusion  of  a  sound  elementary  instruction 
all  may  be  made  capable  of  understanding  the 
value  and  the  gist  of  these  researches — all  may 
follow  them  in  their  outer  circuit ;  all  may  be  set 
upon  the  sacred  track.  If  you  object  that  to 
attain  such  cultivation,  the  working  class  must 
receive  more  money  for  less  work,  in  order  to 
secure  the  time  for  study,  I  reply  :  so  be  it !  Let 
us  simplify  our  lives.    I  have  no  objection  to 


92         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


the  socialistic  phalanstery,  nor  even  to  a  salutary 
reign  of  terror.  These  do  not  interfere  with 
Science.  The  artless  life  of  a  community  where 
none  would  be  rich  or  poor  may  even  be  favour- 
able to  her  development,  Genius  lives  on  simple 
things,  and  Spinoza  contemplated  the  divine 
substance  in  no  palace  while  he  polished  the 
lenses  which  brought  him  bread.  Democracy  has 
no  terror  for  Science.  Let  us  all  be  brothers,  in 
truth,  in  simplicity,  in  generous  and  confident 
human  sympathy." 

Such,  in  effect,  is  the  gospel  which  Ernest 
Renan  caught  amid  the  gun  smoke  and  the 
ominous  fusillades  of  1848.  It  is  easy  to  see 
how  much  of  these  theories  is  natural  to  the 
author,  the  result  of  his  real  convictions  and  his 
peculiar  temperament,  and  how  much  is  due  to 
the  influence  of  the  milieu  and  the  contagion  of  an 
epidemic  enthusiasm.  All  Renan's  later  work  is 
based  on  that  psychological  interpretation  of  facts 
obtained  by  a  patient  scientific  method  which  he 
advocates  in  his  earliest  book.  His  most  fantastic 
philosophy  has  ever  a  solid  piece  of  sober  erudi- 
tion at  the  base.  He  often  reads  too  much  into 
his  text,  between  the  lines,  but  he  starts  from  his 
text,  and  never  evolves  out  of  his  own  brain  a 
system  independent  of  historic  proofs.  He  applies 
to  the  history  of  religion  and  to  the  problems  of 


1848 


93 


exegesis,  the  experimental  method  of  a  student  in 
physics  or  natural  history.  Thus,  in  all  essentials, 
the  Renan  of  the  Avenir  de  la  Science \  is  already 
Renan.  True,  the  Renan  of  the  future  was  to  be 
no  democrat.  But  his  turn  of  mind,  infinitely 
aristocratic,  infinitely  jealous  of  the  rights  of  the 
minority,  was  never  subject  to  the  powers  that 
be.  The  aristocracy  which  Renan  commended 
was  an  aristocracy  of  personal  merit,  an  upper 
house  of  virtue  and  intelligence.  Spinoza  and 
the  fishermen  of  Galilee  were  the  high  barons  of 
his  heraldry.  It  is  impossible  to  read  the  tender, 
human,  fraternal  pages  of  the  Apostles  and  St 
Paul  without  perceiving  how  much  of  the  great 
dream  of  '48  lingered  in  the  mind  of  Renan. 
The  day  was  to  dawn  when,  mournfully,  he  was 
to  admit  that  the  barbarians  are,  in  truth,  a 
necessary  refuse.  But  his  barbarians  were  not 
merely  the  unpossessing  classes :  they  were  the 
selfish,  the  dull,  the  mean,  the  narrow,  in  every 
class,  high  or  low,  rich  or  poor,  one  with  another. 

L  Avenir  de  la  Science  is  an  example  of  the 
subjective  quality  of  Renan's  imagination.  He 
has  sympathy  in  abundance — the  subtlest,  the 
most  penetrating,  the  most  sensitive  of  any  writer 
of  his  time — but  he  has  not  a  particle  of  dramatic 
imagination.  He  interprets  all  things  by  himself. 
If  he  desire  to  save  Society,  he  will  adjure  Society 


LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


to  quit  the  seminary,  turn  philologist,  and  set 
itself  to  study  the  origins  of  Christianity.  In  the 
Avenir  de  la  Science,  Renan  projects  his  own 
sensibility  and  his  own  experience  into  Contem- 
porary Society,  just  as  later  on  he  was  to  project 
them  into  Jesus  Christ  and  Marcus  Aurelius.  No 
man  ever  lived  more  resolutely  in  the  whole ;  but 
in  the  whole,  as  he  sees  it,  he  puts  a  reflection  of 
himself.  He  has  the  extraordinary  gift,  attributed 
by  physicians  to  certain  nervous  patients,  of  ex- 
teriorising his  own  sensibility. 

By  the  time  Renan  had  finished  his  book,  '48 
was  over,  the  fever  of  democracy  had  passed  :  the 
young  author  could  only  regard  his  socialistic  pro- 
jects as  curious  examples  of  the  mythopoetic 
faculty.  No  doubt  they  interested  him  from  this 
point  of  view  also.  Every  mode  and  phase  of  his 
own  and  the  world's  development  impassioned  his 
eager  intelligence.  It  was  all  matter  for  study. 
What  though  one  star  fell  out  of  the  myriads 
in  heaven?  What  though  your  perfect  demo- 
cracy proved  a  poet's  day  dream  ?  The  universe 
teemed  with  other  problems,  other  mysteries, 
equally  important,  equally  engrossing. 

In  1849,  M.  Renan  obtained  from  the  French 
Government  one  of  those  travelling  scholarships 
which,  across  the  Channel,  are  dignified  by  the 
name  of   missions.      He  was  to  seek  in  the 


1848 


95 


libraries  of  Italy  certain  documents  required  by 
the  Academy  of  Inscriptions  for  its  Histoire 
Litteraire  de  la  France;  he  was  also  to  com- 
plete his  own  thesis  on  Averroes.  For  eight 
months  Ernest  Renan  remained  in  the  Peninsula. 

Suddenly  freed  from  the  bracing  influence  of 
his  environment  in  Paris,  Renan  rapidly  regained 
his  natural  bent :  dreamy,  idealizing,  poetic.  More 
than  once  his  letters  from  Rome  must  have  exas- 
perated his  democratic  correspondent.1  There  is  so 
much  religion  in  them,  so  much  art,  vague  piety, 
sentiment  reflected  from  the  Roman  landscape ! 
"  Tell  me  less  about  the  monuments  and  more 
about  the  condition  of  the  people"  answers,  in 
substance,  Marcel  Berthelot.  In  vaim ;  Renan 
has  fallen  under  the  sway  of  the  Past. 

"This  journey  had  the  most  remarkable  in- 
fluence on  my  mind.  I  knew  nothing  of  Art,  and 
lo !  I  beheld  her,  radiant  and  full  of  consolations. 
A  faery  enchantress  seemed  to  whisper  me  the 
words  which  the  Church,  in  her  hymn,  says  to 
the  wood  of  the  Cross  : — 

"  '  Flecte  ramos,  arbor  alta, 
Tensa  laxa  viscera, 
Et  rigor  lentescat  ille 
Quern  dedit  nativitas.' 

A  sort  of  soft  breeze  relaxed  my  native  rigour. 
1  Correspondance  Renan- Berthelot,    Revue  de  Paris,  1  Aout  1897. 


96         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


Almost  all  my  illusions  of  1848  dropped  from 
me,  for  I  saw  they  were  impossible.  I  recognised 
the  fatal  necessities  of  human  society,  I  resigned 
myself  to  a  condition  of  the  creation  in  which 
a  great  deal  of  evil  serves  to  produce  a  little 
good,  where  a  drop  of  exquisite  aroma  is  distilled 
from  an  enormous  caput  mortuum  of  refuse." 

Yet,  whilst  admitting  the  absurdity  of  yesterday's 
chimera,  Renan  did  not  cease  to  follow  the  ever 
beckoning  ideal.  The  Infinite  remained  the 
eternal  guide.  And  on  the  ledger  of  the  Monas- 
tery of  Monte  Cassino  he  wrote  in  1850  : — 

"  Unum  est  necessarwm;  Maria  elegit  optimam  partem" 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  VALE  OF  GRACE 

nPHE  disenchantment  which  followed  1848 
combined  with  the  divine  spectacle  of  Italy 
to  turn  the  mind  of  Renan  from  the  future 
towards  the  past.  He  saw  no  longer  in  his 
dreams  a  socialistic  phalanstery  with  its  Spinoza 
occupied  in  an  optician's  work-room.  His  fancy 
preferred  to  evoke  some  steep  small  Umbrian 
town  with  Etruscan  walls  and  Roman  ruins,  with 
mediaeval  towers  set  high  above  Renaissance 
palaces  and  the  overladen  Jesuit  churches  of 
the  Catholic  Revival.  Here  was  food  for  the 
mind  :  the  past  is  so  poetic  !  We  imagine  the 
future  so  flat  and  full  of  prose !  The  Celt 
especially  is  open  to  the  magical  pathos  of 
historic  memories,  and,  now  that  once  Ernest 
Renan  had  unsealed  his  hearing  to  that  siren- 
song,  the  music  of  the  barricades  might  pipe  to 
him  in  vain  ! 

Impressionable  to  excess,  Renan,  while  guard- 
ing his  will  fixed  on  one  steadfast  aim,  changed 
the  colour  of  his  thoughts  according  to  the  atmos- 

G  97 


98         LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


phere  he  dwelt  in.  Imagine  a  chameleon,  pro- 
gressing unswervingly  in  one  direction,  but  some- 
times blue,  sometimes  rose,  sometimes  green,  in 
the  course  of  his  invariable  traject !  Such  is 
Renan,  the  bizarre  and  eminently  Celtic  fusion 
of  a  constant  mind  with  a  sensitive  temperament. 
Among  the  marvels  of  the  Sabine  Hills,  the  utili- 
tarian ideal  which  yesterday  he  had  invoked, 
appeared  odious  to  him.  He  continued  to  serve 
Truth  and  Science — but  no  longer  in  the  precincts 
of  Democracy.  Rough-shod,  iron  goddess,  might 
her  feet  never  tread  the  Seven  Hills ! 

"  As  for  me,  it  is  with  something  akin  to  terror 
that  I  face  the  day  when  life  shall  penetrate  anew 
that  sublime  heap  of  ruins  which  is  Rome  !  I 
cannot  conceive  her  other  than  she  is  :  a  museum 
of  dilapidated  majesties,  a  tryst  for  the  exiles 
of  our  work-a-day  world,  a  meeting-place  for 
dethroned  monarchs,  disenchanted  statesmen,  and 
sceptical  philosophers  weary  of  their  kind.  Should 
the  fatal  level  of  modern  common-place  threaten 
this  mass  of  sacred  relics,  I  would  fain  the  priests 
and  the  monks  of  Rome  were  paid  to  maintain 
within  her  ruins  their  customary  melancholy  and 
squalor,  and  to  preserve  all  round  about  them 
fever  and  the  desert." 1 

Renan's  democracy  had  been  a  short  brain- 

1  Essais  de  morale  et  de  Critique ,  p.  2 59. 


THE  VALE  OF  GRACE  99 


fever.  It  had  passed :  the  coup  d'etat  disgusted  him 
once  for  all  with  the  lower  classes.  The  develop- 
ment of  his  ideas  made  it  easy  for  certain  of  his 
friends  to  dissuade  him  from  the  publication  of 
DAvenir  de  la  Science.  Although  already  in  July 
1849  a  chapter  of  the  book  had  been  printed  in  a 
review,  with  the  mention  :  "  to  appear  in  a  few 
weeks,"  the  volume  did  not  see  the  light,  in  fact, 
until  1890 — less  out  of  date  than  it  would  have 
been  in  the  first  flush  of  that  reaction  which  forms 
the  morrow  of  every  revolution.  Renan  had  been 
the  first  to  suspect  the  inopportunity  of  yester- 
day's gospel.  He  was  no  longer  under  the 
exclusive  influence  of  the  Berthelots.  On  literary 
matters,  he  consulted  Augustin  Thierry  —  his 
mentor  in  letters — and  M.  de  Sacy :  each  of 
them  advised  him  to  reserve  his  great  work — to 
dispose  of  it  page  by  page,  chapter  by  chapter,  in 
the  form  of  essays  and  reviews  ;  but  not  to  over- 
whelm the  public  with  his  whole  stock  of  un- 
seasonable riches. 

Thus,  in  five  years,  Renan  had  lost  two  ideals 
— Christianity  and  Socialism.  Despite  his  robust 
faith  in  the  future  of  Science,  the  present  world 
began  to  wear  a  disenchanted  aspect.  Our  young 
fanatic  of  yesterday  was  in  some  danger  of  be- 
coming one  of  those  "sceptical  philosophers, 
weary  of  their  kind  "  for  whom  the  Eternal  City 


ioo       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


appeared  so  convenient  a  limbo.  If  we  could 
suppose  a  special  Providence  designed  to  watch 
over  so  notorious  a  heretic,  now  was  the  moment 
for  its  intervention.  And  lo  !  his  sister,  having 
finished  her  ten  years'  engagement  in  Poland, 
summoned  Ernest  to  meet  her  in  Berlin.  And 
Renan  encountered  his  Egeria. 

"  When  we  meet  again,  my  dear,  we  shall 
hardly  recognise  each  other,"  Renan  had  written 
to  his  sister  years  before.  And  after  ten  years 
they  met.  The  slim  young  woman  of  nine  and 
twenty,  gracious  of  aspect,  who  had  bidden  fare- 
well to  her  brother  in  the  seminary  parlour,  was 
grown  into  a  woman  of  forty,  plain  in  the  face, 
prematurely  aged  and  lined  by  the  hard  winters 
of  Poland.  The  girlish  lightness  had  departed 
from  her  figure ;  an  affection  of  the  larynx 
threatened  the  sweetness  of  her  voice.  In  air 
and  dress  Mademoiselle  Renan  affected  an  elderly 
fashion  which  nothing  in  her  looks  belied.  Her 
brother  glanced  at  her,  realised  the  sad  change, — 
and  worshipped  his  austere  Egeria  as  a  second 
mother,  the  comforting  mother  of  his  mind.  She, 
on  the  other  hand,  can  have  seen  small  trace  of 
the  ungainly  provincial  seminarist  she  had  left 
in  the  travelled  young  philosopher  of  seven  and 
twenty  who  stood  before  her.  For  a  moment 
they  were   strangers   in    each    other's  eyes  - — 


THE  VALE  OF  GRACE  101 


but  they  were  intimate  to  the  marrow  of  the 
mind. 

Henriette  returned  to  Paris  with  Ernest.  She 
had  lost  her  youth  and  her  health  in  Poland,  but 
she  had  paid  off  her  father's  debts,  redeemed  the 
mortgage  on  her  mother's  property,  established 
her  brother  in  the  way  he  should  go,  and  a  little 
purse  of  savings  remained  to  set  up  house  with. 
They  were  to  live  together.  Each  had  long 
dreamed  this  dream,  and  five  years  before  Ernest 
had  written— "We  shall  be  so  happy,  dear !  I 
am  easy-tempered  and  gentle.  You  will  let  me 
live  the  serious  simple  life  I  love,  and  I  will 
tell  you  all  I  think  and  all  I  feel.  We  shall  have 
our  friends  too — refined  and  elect  spirits — who 
will  beautify  our  life." 

They  chose  a  small  apartment  near  the  Val-de- 
Grace,  with  windows  looking  over  the  garden 
of  the  Carmelite  Nuns.  There  was  room  for 
them  and  their  books  ;  place  for  M.  Berthelot  to 
sit  and  discuss  with  them  all  things  under  the 
sun  ;  a  seat  for  such  of  Ernest  Renan's  masters  as 
would  honour  his  home.  Henriette  had  few  friends 
and  did  not  desire  to  enlarge  her  acquaintance. 
She  had  Ernest  and  that  was  enough. 

Ernest  was  absent  a  part  of  every  day  at 
the  National  Library :  he  had  been  appointed 
to  a  small  charge  of  Sub-Librarian.    His  salary, 


102       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  REN  AN 


with  Henrietta's  savings,  sufficed  for  their 
daily  wants.  While  her  brother  was  away  the 
devoted  sister  copied  out  his  manuscripts  for 
him,  made  long  abstracts  from  volumes  needed 
for  his  work,  corrected  his  proofs,  took  notes 
which  might  be  of  use  to  him,  compulsed  a 
mass  of  documents,  verified  dates  and  authorities. 
For  amusement  she  looked  out  of  the  window 
at  the  nuns  in  their  convent  garden,  or  waited 
for  Ernests  return.  .  .  .  Anxious  pleasure  of 
waiting,  of  listening  for  a  glad  step  on  the  stair — 
and  then  the  smile  we  expected,  and  the  eager 
budget  of  the  day's  events  ! 

In  the  evening,  Ernest  settled  to  his  writing. 
"  She  had  the  greatest  respect  for  my  work.  I 
have  seen  her  sit  by  my  side  for  hours  of  an 
evening,  scarcely  breathing  lest  she  should  in- 
terrupt my  labours.  Yet  she  loved  to  have 
me  in  her  sight,  and  the  door  between  our  two 
rooms  stood  ever  open.  Her  affection  had  be- 
come something  so  ripe  and  so  discreet  that  the 
sweet  communion  of  our  thoughts  was  sufficient 
for  her.  Her  heart, — jealous,  exacting,  as  it  was 
— demanded  but  a  few  minutes  a  day,  since 
she  alone  was  loved.  Thanks  to  her  strict 
economy,  on  our  singularly  limited  resources 
she  kept  a  house  in  which  nothing  was  lacking 
and  which  could  boast  its  own  austere  charm.  .  .  . 


THE  VALE  OF  GRACE  103 

She  was  an  incomparable  secretary.  Her  delicate 
censure  discovered  negligences  and  brusqueries 
which  I  had  overlooked.  It  was  she  who  per- 
suaded me  that  every  shade  of  thought  can  be 
expressed  in  a  correct  and  simple  style,  that 
violent  images  and  new-coined  expressions  betray 
either  misplaced  pretensions  or  ignorance  of  the 
real  wealth  at  our  disposal  Hence  a  profound 
change  in  the  manner  of  my  writing.  I  ac- 
customed myself  to  reckon  in  advance  on  her 
remarks — hazarding  many  a  brilliant  passage  to 
watch  its  effect  upon  her,  whilst  decided  to 
sacrifice  it  if  she  observed  it  with  disfavour." 1 

Henriette  examined  not  only  the  manner  but 
the  matter.  Her  simple  rectitude  was  discon- 
certed by  Ernest's  recurrent  irony.  "  I  had  never 
suffered,  and  a  discreet  smile  provoked  by  the 
weakness  or  the  vanity  of  man,  seemed  a  sort 
of  philosophy."  Many  a  winged  shaft  was  offered 
on  her  shrine. 

Fine  writing,  irony,  and  a  certain  abstract 
vagueness  in  spiritual  matters ;  such  were  the 
qualities  which  Henriette  was  anxious  to  dis- 
cipline and  chasten  in  her  gifted  brother's  writ- 
ings. The  tender  inquisitress  was  not  satisfied 
until  all  was  pure,  exact,  discreet,  and  true. 
She  said  to  her  brother,  "  Be  thou  perfect ! " 

1  Ma  sceur  Henriette,  p.  36. 


104       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  REN  AN 


And  a  dash  of  mockery,  a  trace  of  vanity,  the 
least  little  air  of  disdain,  or  flaunt  of  self- 
satisfaction,  however  pretty  in  itself,  was  a  flaw 
in  the  absolute  clear  beauty  she  desired.  Most 
of  all,  she  sought  to  cultivate  in  him  the  habit 
of  veracity,  a  habit  the  seminary  had  not  in- 
culcated, it  appears.  "  I  have  never  told  a  lie 
since  1 8  5  1 ,"  wrote  Ernest  many  years  after  her 
death. 

Her  efforts  were  seconded  by  Ernest's  friends 
— by  Augustin  Thierry,  who  in  1 8  5  1  introduced 
the  young  writer  to  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  ; 
by  M.  de  Sacy,  who  admitted  him  on  to  the  staff 
of  the  Debats.  "  It  was  these  two  organs,"  said 
M.  Renan  in  1890,  "who  taught  me  how  to 
write,  that  is  to  say,  how  to  limit  myself,  how 
constantly  to  rub  the  angles  off  my  ideas,  how 
to  keep  a  watchful  eye  on  my  defects." 1  The 
extraordinary  absence  of  vanity  which  character- 
ised Renan  in  his  youth  enabled  him  to  profit  by 
all  this  good  advice  without  any  juvenile  soreness 
of  feeling.  He  was  right.  Between  the  Avenir 
de  la  Science,  written  in  1848  and  1849,  and 
the  essays  contributed  to  the  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes  and  the  Debuts,  in  the  years  immediately 
following  1 8  5 1 ,  there  is  fixed  the  abyss  which 
divides  work  of  fervent  and  interesting  promise 

1  Preface  to  Avenir. 


THE  VALE  OF  GRACE  105 


from  the  peculiar  ripe  perfection  of  a  great  writer. 
Renan's  genius  was  to  grow  freer  and  fuller,  at  once 
more  human  and  more  fantastic,  more  audacious 
and  more  penetrating.  Henceforth  it  will  lose 
rather  than  gain  in  moral  grace,  in  a  certain 
exquisite  gravity  and  elegance  of  spirit.  And, 
perhaps,  never  again  was  the  historian  of  religions 
so  religious. 

In  Renan's  delicate  philosophy,  made  up  of 
semi-tones  and  demi-tints,  piety  had  out-lived 
faith.  In  1856,  he  no  longer  believes  in  any 
of  the  myriad  forms  of  the  one  informing  soul. 
(?ro>.Xa  bvo^ara  Mop<pq  fifa.)  But  that  essential  idea  of 
Religion,  peculiar  and  necessary  to  human  kind,  he 
asserts  to  be  immortal  and  destined  to  an  infinite 
development.  Shall  the  exquisite  herald-angel 
remain  chained,  trammelled,  wounded,  dwarfed 
perchance,  by  fetters  of  our  mortal  forging  ?  To 
strike  off  those  fetters,  thought  Renan,  was  good 
knight's  service.  Set  Religion  free,  let  her  move 
and  grow,  let  her  guide  us  unenslaved,  unim- 
prisoned.  The  refusal  to  adhere  to  a  definite 
form  of  worship  may  be  an  act  of  faith  in  the 
future  of  Religion. 

Thanks  to  Ernest's  genius  and  Henriettas 
incessant  vigilance,  nothing  in  these  early  essays 
suggested  the  beginner,  nor  even  the  young  man. 
They  were   rounded   with  a   golden  maturity. 


io6       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


The  intrepidity  of  their  conception  was  veiled 
by  a  becoming  reserve  of  phrase :  the  oracle 
evidently  wished  to  awake  but  not  to  startle 
his  audience.  They  combine  a  soaring  liberty  of 
spirit  with  an  exquisite  candour.  A  great  charm 
in  these  essays  is  that,  so  various  in  their  subjects 
and  their  treatment,  they  are  still  invariable  in 
their  aim.  United  they  form  not  an  anthology, 
but  a  book.  There  is  a  link  between  them  all — 
whether  they  treat  of  the  historians  of  Jesus,  the 
imitation  of  Christ,  the  lives  of  the  Saints,  or  of 
Calvin,  or  Mahomet,  or  the  Prophets  of  Israel, 
or  of  antique  myths,  or  of  the  school  of  Hegel, 
or  whether  they  delicately  flagellate  the  vulgarities 
of  American  Protestantism.  The  author  studies 
one  by  one  these  religious  ideals,  not  dogmatically, 
but  historically  ;  he  penetrates  each  movement,  and 
tries  to  resume  it  in  a  typical  figure,  a  sort  of  ideal 
representative ;  and  this  man  he  then  evokes  in 
his  habit  as  he  lived,  with  every  detail  of  his  most 
intimate  originality.  The  portrait  is  singularly 
living,  whether  or  no  it  be  singularly  like.  .  .  .  On 
this  latter  head  I  would  reserve  my  opinion,  omin- 
ously enlightened  by  a  passage  in  one  of  Renan's 
letters  to  M.  TAbb6  Cognat.  .  .  . 

"  God  forgive  me  for  loving  Ronge  and  Czersky 
if  they  be  misleading  spirits  !  For  what  I  love 
in  them — as  in  all  other  men  to  whom  I  dedicate 


THE  VALE  OF  GRACE  107 


my  enthusiasm — is  a  certain  beautiful  moral 
image  of  them  which  I  create  within  myself. 
It  is  my  own  ideal  which  I  love  in  them.  Now, 
as  to  whether  they  really  resemble  this  image? 
That  appears  to  me,  I  admit,  a  matter  of  slight 
importance." 

Imaginative,  suggestive,  subtle,  Renan's  essays 
as  they  appeared  one  by  one  in  the  early  years 
of  the  Fifties,  attracted  more  attention  than  the 
brother  and  sister  dreamed  of  in  their  dear 
seclusion. 

"  What  was  my  surprise  when,  one  morning, 
a  stranger  of  pleasant  and  intelligent  appearance 
entered  my  attic.  He  complimented  me  on 
certain  articles  of  mine  which  had  appeared  in 
the  Reviews,  and  offered  to  unite  them  in  a 
volume.  Thereupon  he  produced  a  stamped 
document  stipulating  terms  which  I  thought 
astonishingly  generous,  so  much  so  that  when  he 
asked  if  all  my  future  works  should  be  comprised 
in  the  treaty,  I  consented."  1  The  visitor  was  M. 
Michel  L£vy,  the  then  rising  publisher,  whose 
fortune  Renan  was  to  help  to  make ;  and  the 
book,  the  delicious  Etudes  d'Histoire  Religieuse 
immediately  established  him  in  the  first  rank  of 
literature,  if  not  of  popular  success.  Published  on 
the  20th  of  March  1857,  the  Etudes  d'Histoire 

a  Souvenirs,  385. 


io8       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


Religieuse  were  succeeded  on  the  6th  of  June 
I8S9,  by  the  Essais  de  Morale  et  de  Critique. 
Nor  did  Renan  neglect  the  austerer  courts  of 
Science.  In  1855  he  had  finally  given  to 
the  world  the  General  History  of  Semitic 
Languages,  which,  while  still  unpublished,  had 
won  the  Volney  Prize  some  eight  years  before. 
This  book  opened  to  the  author  the  gates  of  the 
Institute.  Uncontested  master  of  Semitic  philo- 
logy in  France,  Renan  was  elected,  in  1856,  a 
Member  of  the  Academy  of  Inscriptions  and 
Belles  Lettres. 

Meanwhile,  in  1852,  Renan  had  published  the 
work  on  Averroes,  which  brought  him  not  only 
his  doctor's  degree,  but  his  first  reputation  as  a 
thinker.  In  Averroes  the  critic  demonstrates 
the  sterilising  effect  of  orthodoxy  on  a  noble  and 
beautiful  philosophy.  Greek  science,  adopted  by 
the  Arab  thinkers,  fixed  and  crystallised  by  them 
into  a  dogma,  becomes  thenceforth  a  thing  in- 
capable of  development  or  fecundity.  To  live 
and  grow,  a  thing  must  pass  from  the  category 
of  esse  into  the  category  of  fieri.  Otherwise 
routine  and  dogmatism  rust  out  the  vital  principle 
in  even  the  greatest  ideas  ;  even  as  a  pool  of  the 
purest  water,  set  apart  from  the  natural  current  of 
streams  or  the  running  rains  of  heaven,  will 
stale  and  grow  stagnant. 


THE  VALE  OF  GRACE 


The  interest  of  philosophic  history  lies  rather 
in  the  picture  it  gives  us  of  the  growth  of  the 
human  mind,  than  in  the  theories  which  it 
exhumes  from  bygone  systems.  The  strange 
development  of  Greek  science  by  a  civilisation 
entirely  alien  to  that  of  Greece  interested  the 
historic  curiosity  of  Renan.  Aristotle  among 
the  Arabs  !  So  we  might  imagine  Pekin  to  adopt 
the  theories  of  Darwin  and  Pasteur,  commentat- 
ing them  during  centuries  in  a  spirit  of  pure 
Chinese  orthodoxy.  The  result  would  probably  be 
of  no  mortal  value — it  would  be  piquant  and  un- 
usual ;  it  would  represent  an  infrequent  combina- 
tion ;  it  would  have  a  value  of  its  own  in  the 
eyes  of  the  disinterested  critic  of  the  universe, 
curious  of  moral  rarities.  It  would  be  interest- 
ing and  useful  to  see  in  what  unlikely  back-waters 
the  Stream  of  Life  can  meander  when  the  main 
current  is  blocked.  .  .  .  The  Arabs  took  the 
philosophy  of  Aristotle  from  the  Syrian  Chris- 
tians, who  had  it  from  the  pagan  Greeks.  The 
Mahommedan  Arabs  bequeathed  it  to  the  Spanish 
Jews,  who  passed  it  on  to  the  Catholic  doctors 
of  the  Middle  Ages  and  Aristotle  ended  as  a 
scholastic  dogmatist  in  the  Sorbonne !  Trans- 
lated, interpreted,  and  falsified  in  a  dozen  different 
senses,  the  intellectual  curiosity  of  Greece  con- 
trived in  these  strange  elements,  if  not  to  grow, 


no       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


if  not  to  produce,  at  least  to  languish  in  a  sort 
of  earthly  limbo.  Die  Wahrheit  magt  Niemand 
verbrennen,  sang  Mechtild  of  Magdeburg,  who, 
in  her  different  degree,  was  another  child  of 
Aristotle. 

But  not  merely  the  curiosity  of  the  man  of 
science  attracted  Renan  to  this  subject.  The 
strongest  bent  of  his  genius  inclined  him  to 
consider,  above  all,  the  origins  of  things.  He 
loved  the  delicate,  rooty  fibres  as  others  love 
the  flowers  or  the  fruits  ;  and  half  of  his  secret 
was  his  extraordinary  faculty  for  seeing  under- 
ground. The  scholastic  philosophy  of  the 
thirteenth  century  is  only  to  be  understood  by 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  Jewish 
and  Arab  thought.  When  Renan  did  not  under- 
stand a  phenomenon,  an  imperious  instinct  bade 
him  seek  its  source.  His  interpretation  of 
Catholic  scholasticism  led  him  first  of  all  to  study 
Averroes,  even  as  later  on  it  led  him  to  study  the 
Early  Church,  and  thence  the  Origins  of  Chris- 
tianity, whence  he  delved  yet  further  back  into 
the  Origins  of  Judaism.  Averroes  is  the  first 
link  in  a  chain  which  Renan  was  to  spend  his 
life  in  forging. 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHER 

IF  we  hold  with  Averroes  that  all  men  are  the 
transient  expressions  of  one  enduring  soul, 
we  find  small  difficulty  in  explaining  how  the 
noblest  minds  of  a  given  generation  arrive, 
unknown  to  each  other,  and  simultaneously,  at 
a  like  result  While  Renan  was  painfully  de- 
ducing from  documents  and  inflections  a  new 
psychology,  a  young  classical  master  at  Nevers, 
named  Hippolyte  Taine,  was  writing  to  his 
friends  : — 

"  Free  psychology  is  a  magnificent  science 
founded  on  the  philosophy  of  history  ...  we 
must  make  of  history  an  exact  science.  ...  I 
take  refuge  from  the  present  in  reading  the 
Germans." 1 

Taine  met  Renan,  five  years  his  senior,  in  the 
offices  of  the  great  Liberal  reviews.  Save  in  the 
fundamental  independence  and  unworldliness  of 
their  natures,  no  men  could  be  more  different. 

1  See,  in  M.  Gabriel  Monod's  charming  and  valuable  volume 
Rencm,  Taine \  Michelety  the  previously  unpublished  letters  of  Taine. 

hi 


H2       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


The  genius  of  Taine  was  absolute,  positive,  vivid 
to  the  verge  of  harshness,  apt  to  mass  and  class 
the  confusion  of  things  in  a  series  of  brilliant 
syntheses  :  above  all  things  he  was  a  logician. 
Renan, — subtle,  complex  and  elusive,  a  historian 
and,  above  all,  an  analyst, — was  for  ever  dividing 
and  sub-dividing  the  prism  of  the  universe  into 
an  immeasurable  sequence  of  minor  shades  ;  was 
for  ever  attenuating  his  keen  and  often  auda- 
cious analysis  by  a  style  serene  and  limpid 
beyond  comparison.  But  a  like  idea  of  Truth 
and  Liberty  animated  their  souls.  Equally 
admirable,  equally  eminent,  Renan  and  Taine 
were  as  the  two  eyes  of  the  generation  which 
came  to  its  maturity  towards  i860. 

The  children  of  a  later  day  can  form  no  idea 
of  the  repression  which  followed  '48,  of  those 
gloomy  years  in  which  thought  was  fettered, 
freedom  stifled,  in  which  a  political  and  orthodox 
inquisition  controlled  the  university  and  the  press 
of  a  liberal  nation.  The  fusillades  of  the  Luxem- 
bourg were  less  detestable  than  the  intellectual 
tyranny  of  the  Empire  of  the  Fifties.  A  govern- 
ment in  reaction  against  armed  insurrection 
has  some  excuse  for  excessive  reprisals  ;  it  may 
be  right  in  maintaining  order  even  by  a  flagrant 
retaliation  ;  but  it  is  an  error  to  believe  that  the 
premeditated  dwarfing  of  a  nation's  intelligence 


THE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHER  113 


can  ever  be  the  guarantee  of  peace.  Adversity, 
however,  steels  the  obstinate;  the  Liberal  party  con- 
tinued its  opposition,  aware  that  no  ministry,  how- 
ever tyrannous,  can  destroy  the  mind  of  a  nation. 
When  the  main  channel  is  blocked,  intelligence 
finds  new  outlets.  The  university,  the  public 
schools,  letters,  the  press,  were  constrained  by  an 
iron  censure,  subject  to  exile,  prison,  suspension, 
daily  fines.  Yet  journalism  had  never  been 
more  brilliant  than  under  the  Second  Empire. 
Beule  contrived  to  outrage  the  Government 
with  impunity  in  writing  the  history  of  Augustus. 
Rogeard  bewailed  the  illiberal  "  Liberty  of 
December  "  —  libertas  Decembris,  as  Horace 
puts  it  —  and  the  censor  dared  not  seize  the 
allusion  to  the  coup  d'etat. 

France,  in  the  Fifties,  had  at  least  one  religion 
which  was  not  a  mere  lip-service,  and  that  was 
the  doctrine  of  Liberalism.  The  little  office  of 
the  Debatsy  with  its  red-tiled  floor,  and  its  two 
shabby  ink-stained  tables,  was  a  sort  of  temple 
of  the  faith.  There  statesmen,  financiers,  scholars, 
artists,  men  of  letters,  met  on  a  footing  of  ease 
and  equality,  the  result  of  their  sincere  devotion 
to  an  aim  outside  themselves  which  made  rank, 
fortune,  influence,  details  of  no  importance.  MM.  de 
Sacy,  Laboulaye,  Prevost  Paradol,  John  Lemoinne, 
the  Bertins,  were  the  priests  of  this  austere  Chapel ; 

H 


H4 


LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


and  its  creed  was  freedom,  the  rights  of  citizens, 
justice,  and  a  ceaseless  aspiration  towards  a 
nobler  order  of  things.  "  Liberalism,"  wrote 
Renan  more  than  once,  "  Liberalism  represents 
for  me  the  formula  of  the  highest  human  develop- 
ment ; "  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Debats  was,  in 
fact,  at  bottom,  much  the  doctrine  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets.  The  task  of  preaching  it  was  attended 
by  almost  insurmountable  difficulties.  The  censor 
was  swift  to  punish  and  to  suppress  any  indepen- 
dent expression  of  political  opinion.  So  the  lead- 
ing articles  in  the  first  columns  were  models  of 
discretion.  The  life  of  the  journal  passed  into  the 
"  Varieties " — into  studies  on  moral  and  social 
questions  or  purely  literary  articles,  and  the  in- 
telligent reader  turned  to  the  third  page  where  he 
read,  between  the  lines  of  an  essay  or  a  review,  all 
that  the  political  editor  was  obliged  to  leave  un- 
said. A  notice  by  Provost  Paradol,  a  piece  of 
Roman  History  by  Cuvillier-Fleury,  an  article  by 
Ernest  Renan  were  sure,  in  their  subtle  opposi- 
tion, of  an  attentive  public. 

It  was  easy  for  a  philosopher  to  serve  the 
Opposition  simply  by  upholding  the  banner  of 
an  austere  Ideal.  The  staff  of  the  Debats, 
like  the  staff  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  was 
content  to  "  cultivate  Literature  upon  a  little 
oatmeal."      The    traditions  of   the  place  were 


THE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHER  115 


all  of  a  certain  Jansenist  severity.  Luxury, 
display, — objects  of  elaborate  mechanical  con- 
struction, even, — were  suspect  in  the  eyes  of 
the  Debats.  To  own  more  than  a  million  or 
so  (of  francs  bien  entendu)  appeared  in  very  poor 
taste.  The  immense  expenses  of  the  Empire, 
the  impetus  given  to  industry,  the  heightened 
standard  of  universal  comfort,  were  signs  of  the 
times  regarded  as  distinctly  ominous  by  these 
eulogists  of  days  gone  by.  They  spoke  of  the 
improvements  of  the  Baron  Haussmann  with  a 
dash  of  contempt  in  a  great  deal  of  disfavour. 
"  I  would  give  all  your  steamboats  for  an  ^neid," 
exclaimed  M.  de  Sacy.  The  Government  was 
as  generous  in  public  works  as  it  was  illiberal  in 
public  instruction.  Vast  sums  were  spent  on 
the  extension  of  railways,  the  establishment  of 
the  telegraph,  on  industrial  exhibitions,  on  the 
organisation  of  savings  banks.  "  There  was 
some  good  in  the  Empire  after  all ! "  cry  we  of 
a  later  date,  as  we  read  the  formidable  list  of 
Imperial  improvements.  "  No  good  !  "  cried  the 
stern  young  prophet  of  the  Dtbats.  "  What 
material  progress  can  compensate  a  moral  de- 
cadence? Will  a  steam  traction  engine  make  a 
man  happy?  Will  a  universal  exhibition  make 
him  nobler  or  better?  In  taking  the  triumphs 
of  mechanical  ingenuity  for  the  sign  of  an  ad- 


n6       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  REN  AN 


vanced  civilisation,  you  mistake  the  mere  accident 
for  the  essential."  So  taught  Renan  in  France 
throughout  the  Fifties  ;  while,  curiously  enough, 
in  England,  John  Ruskin  was  fulminating  a  similar 
gospel  against  the  gross,  the  palpable,  ideal  of 
the  age. 

Renan  discredited  the  advantages  of  tyranny, 
and  showed  how  despotism,  to  make  itself  accept- 
able, invariably  persuades  Society  of  its  talents  as 
a  steward  :  "Bow  down  before  me,  and  I  will  give 
ye  cent  for  cent."  But  what  shall  it  profit  a  man 
if  he  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul  ? 
Nothing  is  less  important  than  prosperity.  Man 
is  not  born  to  be  prosperous,  but  to  realise,  in  a 
little  vanguard  of  chosen  spirits,  an  ideal  superior 
to  the  ideal  of  yesterday.  The  bulk  of  humanity 
lives  by  proxy  ;  only  the  few  can  attain  a  com- 
plete development.  Millions  live  and  die  in  order 
to  produce  a  rare  elite.  The  true  glory  of 
Holland,  for  instance,  is  to  have  brought  forth 
princes  like  William  of  Orange,  painters  like 
Rembrandt,  thinkers  like  Spinoza — not  to  have 
the  best  pastures  in  Europe  and  a  high  standard 
of  comfort.  Once  we  put  the  accent  on  prosperity, 
we  introduce  into  our  midst  envy,  ambition,  and 
all  their  baleful  sequel.  The  really  noble  society 
is  that  in  which  each  man  is  content  with  the 
station  into  which  he  is  born.    The  really  noble 


THE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHER  117 


nation  is  that  which  yields  the  greatest  sum  of 
disinterestedness,  of  self-sacrifice,  that  in  which 
men  most  live  for  one  another :  the  society  whose 
workmen  are  proud  of  the  magnificence  of  their 
prince,  whose  princes  are  solicitous  for  the  needs 
of  the  poor,  whose  laymen  are  sustained  by  the 
prayers  of  the  nun,  whose  priests  rejoice  in  the 
courage  of  the  soldier,  whose  scholars  profit  by 
the  labours  of  the  humble,  whose  harvesters  feel 
that,  in  their  sphere,  they  too  collaborate  in  the 
great  moral  masterpiece  which  is  a  nation  firmly 
welded  in  an  indestructible  solidarity  of  soul. 
Duty  is  the  foundation  of  such  a  society,  and  the 
satisfaction  in  duty  accomplished  the  private  joy 
of  every  citizen — a  joy  deeper  than  any  man  can 
owe  to  the  mere  diffusion  of  material  abundance. 

So  runs  the  epistle  of  Renan  to  his  contempor- 
aries. In  consequence  of  the  storm  raised  by  his 
essay  on  the  historians  of  Jesus,  published  in  the 
Etudes  d'Histoire  Religieuse^  he  had  turned  for  a 
while  from  his  chosen  path  of  religious  history 
to  the  neighbouring  track  of  moral  philosophy. 
The  frivolity  of  the  society  of  his  age  made  him 
pause  in  the  destruction  of  an  illusion  which  was, 
perhaps,  a  restraint  and  an  ideal.  The  morality 
of  the  average  man  is  in  fact  generally  a  con- 
sequence of  his  piety ;  let  us  therefore  respect 
that  piety.    Let  us  direct  it.    Whether  or  no 


n8       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 

Christianity  be  true,  this  philosopher  was  persuaded 
of  the  existence  of  good  and  evil. 

"  An  impenetrable  veil  screens  from  us  the 
secret  of  this  strange  world  whose  reality  con- 
vinces and  oppresses  us.  Philosophy  and  Science 
pursue  for  ever,  and  ever  in  vain,  the  formula  of 
this  proteus  whom  no  reason  limits  and  no  tongue 
expresses.  But  there  is  one  indubitable  founda- 
tion, which  scepticism  shall  not  shake,  where  man 
may  find,  until  the  end  of  time,  a  foothold  firm 
amid  the  uncertainties  around  him  :  Good  is  good, 
evil  is  evil." 

Good  is  good,  evil  is  evil,  and,  above  all  things, 
truth  is  truth : — "  Whatever  system  we  adopt  to 
explain  man  and  the  world,  we  cannot  deny  that 
the  problems  they  arouse  are  infinitely  curious, 
infinitely  attaching,  and  worthy  of  the  most  patient 
investigation.  And  even  if  virtue  were  but  a 
snare,  laid  for  the  noblest,  if  hope  were  a  dream, 
beauty  an  illusion,  humanity  a  vain  tumult,  the 
pure  research  of  truth  would  still  preserve  its 
charm  !  For  even  if  we  suppose  the  world  to  be 
the  nightmare  of  a  fevered  divinity,  or  an  acciden- 
tal bubble  on  the  surface  of  nothingness,  yet  are 
we  invincibly  impelled  to  wring  its  secret  from  it. 
Whatever  we  may  think  of  the  universe,  it  remains 
a  spectacle  which  rivets  our  attention.  In  the 
life  of  St  Thomas  Aquinas  we  read  that  one 


THE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHER  119 


day  Christ  appeared  to  him  and  asked  him 
what  reward  he  craved  for  his  learned  writings. 
*  Nothing  but  Thee,  O  Lord  ! '  replied  the  angeli- 
cal doctor.  The  critic  of  the  universe  is  yet  more 
disinterested.  If  Truth  should  appear  and  address 
him  a  like  question,  he  would  answer — '  Nought 
but  the  pursuit  of  thee,  O  Truth  ! '  " 1 

1  Essais  de  Morale  et  de  Critique p.  100. 


CHAPTER  V 


MARRIAGE 

A PORTRAIT  by  Henry  Scheffer — the  less 
known  brother  of  a  famous  painter — shows 
us  Renan  at  this  time.  The  head  is  certainly 
idealized,  but  its  likeness  to  the  sitter's  charming 
daughter  forbids  us  to  call  it  a  piece  of  flattery 
pure  and  simple.  It  shows  a  Renan  strikingly 
unlike  the  gnome-like  figure,  the  colossal  leonine 
head,  the  radiant  ugliness  of  the  affable  Acade- 
mician we  remember.  Neither  the  strength,  nor 
the  humour,  nor  the  disenchanted  benignant  smile 
we  knew  are  here.  This  is  a  serious  elegiac 
young  man,  a  Hamlet, — nay,  too  gentle  and  un- 
suspicious for  a  Hamlet, — almost  a  Good  Shep- 
herd. The  cheeks  and  jaw  have  not  yet  taken  on 
those  formidable  proportions  which  made  the  sin- 
uous lips  appear  yet  more  delicate.  All  the  features 
are  larger,  the  heavy  nose,  the  mouth,  especially 
the  eyes — charming,  in  this  portrait,  in  their 
smiling  melancholy.  The  oval  of  the  face  ap- 
pears not  only  slighter  but  longer.  The  ensemble 
1 20 


MARRIAGE 


121 


is  striking,  touching,  even  handsome.  The 
relentless  idealism  of  the  painter  has  attenuated 
the  quaint  awkwardness  of  the  model,  whose 
small  stature,  heavy  sloping  shoulders,  huge  head, 
and  short  arms  can  never  have  presented  this  dis- 
tinguished appearance.  Renan  was  well  aware  of 
his  deficiencies.  Many  a  line  in  his  earlier  essays 
informs  us  of  his  bashfulness  in  society.  His 
priest's  education  and  the  long  habit  of  solitude 
had  left  him  awkward,  silent,  reserved.  He  could 
discourse  brilliantly  on  elevated  subjects,  but  he 
did  not  know  how,  at  the  right  moment,  to  say 
the  usual  thing.  He  was  always  utterly  devoid  of 
the  give-and-take  of  the  ready  talker.  Thus  he 
oscillated  between  an  inspired  monologue  and  a 
heavy  silence,  while  he  wondered  how  intelligent 
persons  could  be  so  fired  by  the  common-place, 
"  so  interested  in  what  does  not  ennoble."  He 
felt  painfully  his  uncouth  exterior,  and  perhaps 
still  more  painfully,  though  with  a  certain  pride, 
that  mark  of  the  priest  on  his  forehead,  which, 
as  he  thought,  was  clearly  legible,  destining  him 
to  eternal  solitude  in  the  pursuit  of  the  ideal.  Sir 
M.  Grant  Duff,  who  met  him  first  in  1859,  gives  us 
a  more  flattered  version  of  the  same  character  : — 
"  His  manner  had  that  charming  gentleness 
which  is  characteristic  of  the  best  of  the  Catholic 
clergy.    His  conversation  was  very  copious  and 


122       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  REN  AN 


limpid,  not  dealing  much  in  epigram  or  anecdote, 
but  very  easy  and  very  informing." 

It  was  towards  1855,  I  think,  that  Renan 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Ary  Scheffer.  The 
pure  idealism  of  the  Dutch  painter's  art,  the 
liberality  of  his  religious  feeling,  the  generous 
and  lofty  temper  of  his  mind,  were  such  as  to 
fire  the  young  savants  enthusiasm.  By  his  new 
friend's  hearth,  he  found  that  household  warmth, 
that  simple  and  yet  intellectual  geniality  which 
were  all  that  was  needed  to  thaw  his  chill  timidi- 
ties. M.  Schefifer's  house  had  not  been  the  home 
it  became  to  Ernest  Renan  were  there  no  women 
by  the  hearth.  He  had  a  niece  and  a  daughter. 
Some  thirty-five  years  later  I  was  privileged  to 
count  the  former  among  my  dearest  friends. 

When  I  knew  her  Madame  Renan  was  an 
ageing  woman,  her  figure  grown  to  a  great  size, 
the  shape  of  her  face  something  altered  by  the 
habit  of  difficult  breathing  :  she  had  a  heart  com- 
plaint. But,  at  sixty,  her  bright  blue  eyes,  with 
their  look  of  witty  innocence,  her  clear  skin,  her 
abundant  chestnut  hair,  her  delightful  smile  with 
its  winning  unassailable  youth,  sufficed  to  remind 
us  of  the  attractions  of  her  girlhood.  Her  early 
portraits  show  a  slim  light  grace,  a  pure  oval  of 
cheek  and  brow,  with  the  same  air  of  merry  good- 
ness which  made  her  face  so  charming  in  age. 


MARRIAGE 


123 


As  clever  as  she  was  pretty,  as  kind  as  she  was 
wise,  the  friends  of  her  girlhood  used  to  call  her 
Minerva ;  but  imagine  the  most  modest,  the  most 
amiable  fireside  divinity,  prescient  for  others,  wise 
with  no  thought  of  her  own  advancement.  Lively, 
gay,  active,  sweet-tempered,  capable,  discreet, — 
Corn^lie  Schefifer  was  the  ideal  helpmate.  Really 
gifted,  she  soon  discovered  the  intellectual  superi- 
ority of  her  uncle's  friend.  Imagine  his  delight 
to  find  this  charming  maiden,  not  only  acquainted, 
but  deeply  imbued,  with  his  own  writings,  and 
able  to  talk  with  him  not  merely  as  an  admirer, 
but  as  an  intelligent  companion.  Little  by  little 
her  influence  on  her  new  friend  became  only 
second  to  that  of  Henriette,  and  inclined  him 
ever  more  and  more  to  the  standpoint  of  the 
artist,  of  the  man  of  feeling,  as  opposed  to  the 
pure  scholar's  point  of  view.  I  suppose  M.  Ary 
Scheffer  saw  how  things  were  drifting.  Often 
Madame  Renan  has  told  me  of  a  ride  she  took 
with  her  uncle  on  the  sands  near  Scheveningen — 
I  suppose  in  the  autumn  of  1855.  They  were 
talking  of  the  future — of  other  people's  future. 
Suddenly  he  wheeled  round  his  horse,  confronted 
her,  and  said — "You,  my  dear,  you  ought  to 
marry  the  most  intelligent  man  I  know."  Neither 
said  any  more ;  they  broke  into  a  gallop,  and 
continued  their  thoughts  in  silence. 


124       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


But  Mademoiselle  Renan,  in  her  dear  seclusion, 
laid  no  great  stress  on  this  intimacy  with  the 
Scheffers,  Long  before  she  had  proposed  to 
Ernest  what  she  had  considered  a  suitable  al- 
liance. He  had  refused  ;  the  years  glided  on  ; 
and  the  tender,  jealous  sister,  so  happy  in  her 
double  solitude,  had  come  to  count  upon  her 
brother  as  exclusively  her  own  for  ever.  He, 
on  the  other  hand,  relied  on  her  sympathy  for 
a  confession  which  his  reserve  continually  put  off. 
And  one  day  he  awoke  to  find  himself  condemned 
to  break  the  heart  of  one  of  the  two  women  he 
loved  best  in  all  the  world. 

In  pages  of  a  penetrating  beauty,  Ernest  Renan 
himself  has  told  the  heart-wrung  modest  tragedy. 
Who  shall  repeat  the  words  which  a  sacred 
emotion  has  let  escape  from  the  lips  of  a  master  ? 
Henriette  Renan  could  not,  would  not,  at  first 
accept  the  bitter  cup.  And  one  day  her  brother, 
forced  to  choose  between  two  affections,  decided 
for  that  which  seemed  most  like  a  duty.  He 
bade  farewell,  an  eternal  farewell,  to  the  young 
girl  he  loved.  At  night-fall,  he  went  home ;  en- 
tered quietly  the  little  study,  henceforth  desolate, 
and  told  his  sister  of  his  sacrifice.  Thus  set  • 
face  to  face  with  a  generosity  superior  to  her 
own,  all  that  was  noble,  all  that  was  the  infallible 
protectress,  revived  in  Henriette  and  forbade  the 


MARRIAGE 


125 


sacrifice.  The  next  morning  early  she  went  to 
M.  Scheffer's  house ;  asked  for  her  young  rival, 
sought  and  found  her  peace.  The  two  women 
wept  long  in  each  other's  arms ;  but  they  bid 
each  other  au  revoir  I  with  glad  faces.  In  those 
hours  of  shaken  tears  their  sisterhood  had  begun. 

But  not  yet,  if  ever,  was  the  demon  of  tender 
jealousy  allayed.  The  first  years  of  Madame 
Renan's  married  life  were  filled  with  a  difficult  and 
tormented  happiness.  The  young  wife,  brought 
up  with  all  the  triple  liberty  of  a  cosmopolitan, 
Protestant,  and  artistic  home,  must  often  have  felt 
the  provincial  reclusion  of  the  Renans'  house 
weigh  upon  her  spirits.  For  she  was  not  mistress 
there.  The  Minerva  of  Ary  Scheffer's  studio  never 
complained  of  the  subordinate  position  allotted 
her  by  her  own  conventual  hearth.  Her  hus- 
band, accustomed  all  his  life  long  to  look  up  to 
Henriette  and  obey  her,  thought  it  quite  natural 
that  his  young  wife  should  obey  her  too.  And 
the  exquisite,  the  devoted,  the  noble  Henriette 
was  sometimes  a  jealous  divinity. 

The  birth  of  a  son  lit  a  warmer  glow  at  their 
fireside.  Henriette  adored  her  nephew,  and  this 
great  new  interest  reconciled  her  to  her  brother's 
marriage.  Melancholy,  tearful,  anxious,  she  re- 
mained ;  ever  susceptible,  easily  wounded  ;  but  a 
real  affection  for  Ary's  mother  knit  her  at  last 


126       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


to  her  sister-in-law.  In  i860  they  were  still 
closer  drawn  together  by  the  loss  of  a  little  girl, 
Ernestine,  passionately  beloved  by  her  father,  who 
consecrated  to  this  baby  soul  an  exquisite  In 
Memoriam\  still  unpublished. — Little  Ernestine, 
who  lived  nine  months,  was  never  forgotten  ; — 
often  has  Madame  Renan  recalled  to  me  a  loss 
still  recent  to  her  faithful  love ;  and  Henriette 
Renan  in  her  last  illness  spoke  many  a  time  to 
Ernest  of  their  "  little  flower." — Meanwhile  old 
Madame  Renan  had  joined  the  family  circle. 
The  witty,  voluble  little  old  woman  had  much 
more  in  common  with  her  daughter  -  in  -  law 
than  with  her  daughter.  At  heart,  she  had 
never  forgiven  Henriette  her  plain  face  ;  and 
she,  at  least,  knew  the  value  of  youth,  charm, 
beauty,  and  vivacity  in  a  woman.  Her  presence 
made  things  go  smoothly.  Her  son  adored  her, 
admired  her,  no  less  than  in  the  old  days  at 
Treguier.  Every  afternoon  at  dusk  he  was  wont 
to  spend  an  hour  in  her  room,  lit  only  by  the 
gas  lamps  in  the  street.  And  she  would  dis- 
course to  him  of  Treguier  and  Lannion  as  they 
were  before  the  Revolution,  of  her  own  early 
youth,  and  of  a  vanished  Brittany.  More  than 
twenty  years  later,  these  talks  in  the  twilight 
were  to  receive  an  immortal  setting  in  Renan's 
Souvenirs  d'Enfance  et  de  Jeunesse. 


MARRIAGE 


127 


In  1858  Ary  Scheffer  died,  and  Renan  lost 
in  him  not  only  a  near  related  friend  but  a 
collaborator.  Ary  Scheffer's  last  design  had  been 
made  to  illustrate  his  nephew-in-law's  translation 
of  the  Book  of  Job.  The  volume  appeared, 
without  the  promised  illustrations,  in  1859.  And 
thus  Renan  began  his  version  of  the  Bible, 
choosing  by  a  sort  of  instinct  the  great  hymn 
of  doubt  and  despair,  the  terrible  dialogue  of  an 
irresponsible  God  who  mocks  at  justice,  and  of  a 
baffled  and  ignorant  humanity.  In  the  following 
year  he  brought  forth  his  second  book — "  The 
Song  of  Songs,"  the  triumphant  paean  of  Profane 
Love.  More  than  twenty  years  later,  he  was  to 
give  us  EcclesiasteS)  the  last  word  of  scepticism, 
the  last  ironical  smile-and-sigh  of  the  pessimist 
convinced  that  man  shall  never  triumph  over  fate. 
Strange  scriptures  these.  In  the  Bible,  according 
to  Ernest  Renan,  there  is  neither  a  prayer  nor 
a  psalm.  Renan's  translation  of  The  Song  of 
Songs  is  a  masterpiece  of  ingenious  scholar- 
ship, and  one  may  say  that  only  those  who 
have  read  this  charming  version  can  appreciate 
all  the  beauty,  freshness,  and  candour  of  the 
exquisite  little  Hebrew  morality-play. 

In  1857  Quatremere  had  died,  and  since 
then  there  was  a  Chair  vacant  at  the  College 
of  France — the   Chair  of  Hebrew  and  Syro- 


128       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


Chaldaic  languages  —  the  place  which  Renan 
had  desired  consistently,  and  to  which  every 
succeeding  volume  showed  his  title  clearer. 

The  Professors  of  the  College  of  France  are 
named  by  the  Minister  of  Public  Instruction  from 
two  lists,  the  one  drawn  up  by  the  College  itself, 
the  other  by  the  Academy  of  Inscriptions. 
These  lists  are  almost  always  identical.  Cer- 
tainly the  name  of  Ernest  Renan  would  have 
headed  either.  But  month  after  month,  year  after 
year,  dragged  on  ;  the  Chair  of  Hebrew  remained 
vacant ;  the  Minister  never  asked  for  the  lists. 
The  Professorship  of  Hebrew  at  the  College  of 
France  is,  in  point  of  fact,  a  Chair  of  Biblical 
exegesis.  The  Catholic  party,  all-powerful  in  the 
first  years  of  the  Spanish  Empress's  influence,  had 
devised  this  means  of  reducing  a  renegade  to 
silence.  Renan  waited,  and  continued  his  duties 
as  one  of  the  sub-librarians  at  the  Biblioth&que 
Imperiale.  He  knew  his  time  would  come.  When, 
in  1 86 1,  overtures  were  made  to  him,  to  discover 
if  he  would  accept  another  Chair  at  the  College 
of  France,  he  replied,  No.  He  meant  yet  to  fill 
the  seat  of  Quatremere. 


CHAPTER  VI 


A  MISSION  TO  PHOENICIA 

"TV  7T EANWHILE  the  Empire  prospered  and 
became  mellower  in  its  prosperity.  The 
laurels  of  the  Crimea  hid,  in  some  measure,  the 
blood  stains  of  the  Deux-Decembre.  Men  began 
to  speak  well  of  a  Government  which  secured  a 
triumph  abroad  and  magnificence  at  home. 
When  Napoleon  III.  declared  war  against  Austria 
in  favour  of  Italian  independence,  the  usurper 
appeared  the  champion  of  liberty,  and  the 
popular  enthusiasm  knew  no  bounds.  And,  in 
fact,  at  heart,  Louis -Napoleon,  curious  of  all 
things,  convinced  of  none,  inclined  as  much  to 
democracy  as  to  any  other  popular  idol.  Like 
one  of  those  late  Roman  Emperors,  in  whose 
private  oratory  there  was  a  place  for  Isis  and 
a  place  for  Abraham,  his  eclectic  mind  gave 
a  fragmentary  worship  to  the  idea  of  Freedom. 
Personally,  he  was  liberal  in  his  views,  though  a 
wave  of  conservative  opinion  had  brought  him  to 
the  throne.  But  while  he  began  to  disassociate 
his  influence  from  the  tyranny  of  his  Ministers, 

T  129 


130       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


he  kept  them  in  power.  He  attempted  to  realise 
democratic  projects  by  the  aid  of  the  repressers 
of  '48.  He  and  his  Government  pulled  in 
different  directions — the  tension  reassured  him  : 
in  that  way  he  was  sure  of  not  going  too  far. 

On  the  15th  August  1859,  the  Emperor  pro- 
claimed a  general  amnesty  for  all  political  offences. 
Of  the  six  thousand  exiles  of  December,  many 
refused  the  Emperor's  pardon. 

"  Si  l'on  n'est  plus  que  mille,  eh  bien  !  j'en  suis.   Si  meme 
lis  ne  sont  plus  que  cent,  je  brave  encor  Sylla  ! 
S'il  en  demeure  dix,  je  serai  le  dixieme 
Et  s'il  n'en  reste  qu'un,  je  serai  celui-la  ! " 

So  sang  Victor  Hugo,  and  many  took  up  the 
echo.  Others  were  dead  in  banishment,  but 
many  returned.  Nothing  succeeds  like  success, 
as  we  all  know,  and  the  empire  appeared  a  great 
success.  One  after  the  other,  great  names  began 
to  slip  from  the  ranks  of  the  Liberals  and  to 
appear  on  the  horizon  of  the  Court.  Soon  genius 
became  a  frequent  guest  at  Compiegne.  The 
Emperor's  marriage  had  drawn  Merimee  into 
his  circle  ;  Sainte-Beuve,  Nisard,  Gautier,  Emile 
Augier  followed  suit.  And  the  Empire,  in 
admitting  these  great  men,  was  modified  by 
their  influence,  became  eager  to  patronise  art 
and  letters,  to  further  the  pursuits  of  Science. 
The  Emperor  himself  was  a  sort  of  a  scholar, 


A  MISSION  TO  PHCENICIA  131 


a  kind  of  an  author,  a  hanger-on  of  Clio. 
Hesitatingly,  doubtfully,  though  he  still  clung 
to  his  guides  of  yesterday,  he  began  to 
follow,  with  one  step  back  for  every  two  steps 
forward,  the  brilliant  phalanx  that  showed  a 
better  way. 

Curious,  indulgent,  Renan  watched  this  new 
departure  with  a  sort  of  benign  amusement,  but 
made  no  advances.  He,  at  least,  never  changed 
his  political  position.  Liberal  in  1848,  Liberal 
in  1851,  he  was  no  less  Liberal  in  i860,  when 
Liberalism  had  become  a  sort  of  fashion.  Yet, 
when  in  the  month  of  May  i860,  the  Emperor 
made  a  feeble  advance  to  the  man  he  had  injured, 
offered  to  send  him  on  an  archaeological  mission 
to  Phoenicia,  Renan  immediately  accepted.  Some 
of  his  old  friends  wondered.  "  The  feud  between 
the  Government  and  the  intellect  of  France 
was  then  so  bitter  that  many  persons  of  great 
merit  would  not  have  accepted  even  a  scientific 
mission  at  its  hands ; "  so  Sir  M.  Grant  Duff 
has  well  observed.  Renan  had  no  such  scruple. 
Henriette,  moreover,  urged  him  to  undertake  an 
expedition  which  implied  no  political  adherence 
to  the  Government,  no  personal  advancement, — 
which  took  him  from  what  still  remained  the 
scene  of  his  ambitions,  merely  to  further  the 
gain  of  Science.    And  it  was  arranged  that  she 


132       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


should  accompany  him  as  secretary,  as  accountant, 
as  steward  of  his  resources. 

The  arrangements  for  their  departure  were 
not  yet  completed  when  the  Druses  fell  on  the 
Christians  of  Mount  Lebanon,  and  massacred 
them  in  a  Holy  War.  The  Second  Empire,  how- 
ever illiberal  at  home,  was  more  than  generous 
in  its  foreign  policy.  Napoleon  immediately 
decided  to  protect  the  unfortunate  Maronites. 
The  vessel  which  carried  M.  Renan  and  his  sister 
to  Beyrouth  was  one  of  those  which  transported 
a  French  division  to  Syria.  Renan,  in  his  candid 
absorption  in  the  ends  of  Science,  appears  to  have 
accepted  the  whole  affair — massacres,  Turkish 
incapacity,  French  army  partant  pour  la  Syrte, 
&c, — as  providentially  combined  in  the  interests 
of  archaeology :  "  The  presence  of  our  soldiers 
on  the  spot  was  a  most  favourable  element  in 
my  design.  Thereby  my  excavations  were 
singularly  simplified — they  were  made  by  the 
soldiers.  Thus  my  mission  to  Phoenicia  took 
that  place  in  the  Syrian  Expedition,  which  the 
French  army,  in  its  noble  preoccupation  with 
the  things  of  the  mind,  has  ever  loved  to  accord 
to  Science  in  her  more  distant  ventures."  1 

The  blood  of  the  Maronites  was  scarcely  dry 
on  the  sand  when  the  Renans  reached  the  Syrian 

1  Mission  de  Phinicie,  I^re  Livraison,  p.  2. 


A  MISSION  TO  PHCENICIA  133 


shore.  Thus  they  saw  the  East  at  once  in  the 
squalor  and  horror  of  Moslem  misrule,  and  in 
all  the  glory  of  its  past.  They  landed  at  Bey- 
routh, and  at  once  began  their  excavations  at 
Byblos.  Ancient  Phoenicia,  as  the  reader  may 
remember,  comprised  that  strip  of  Syrian  coast 
— some  thirty  miles  wide  at  largest,  but  nearly 
thrice  as  long — which  runs  between  the  Mediter- 
ranean shore  and  the  range  of  Lebanon.  There 
stand  Azad  and  Marath,  Tyre  and  Sidon,  the 
Byblos  of  Adonis — memorable  names  !  Ports, 
whence  the  Canaanitish  traders  put  forth  to  carry 
cedarwood  to  Solomon,  and  purple  from  Tyre, 
and,  from  Sidon,  the  famous  wares  of  Artas  the 
glassmaker ;  ports  whence  they  sped  to  Greece, 
Spain,  Africa,  Italy,  founding  Carthage,  founding 
Cadiz,  building  harbours  and  stations  until  they 
made  the  Mediterranean  a  mere  Phoenician  lake. 
In  their  boats,  with  their  bales,  these  hardy 
traders  carried  knowledge  :  but  for  their  alphabet, 
where  were  all  our  science?  But  in  art  these 
English  of  the  East  were  less  happy.  Colossal, 
irregular,  impressive,  their  strange  dome  of  Amrit, 
guarded  by  its  lions,  is  almost  their  only  master- 
piece. For  the  best  part,  their  monuments  are 
a  half-barbaric  reminiscence  of  Egypt  or  of 
Greece,  coarsely  wrought,  overloaded  by  plaques 
of  metal  ornament. 


134       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


If  the  sarcophagi  which  the  Renans  unearthed 
at  Byblos,  showed  no  happy  marvel  of  design — if 
they  were  but  honourable  examples  of  provincial 
art  roughly  executed  in  the  best  materials, — at 
least  they  afforded  a  singular  pleasure  to  their 
excavators.  Brother  and  sister  had  never  dreamed 
of  a  life  so  free.  Here  they  sat,  on  this  beautiful 
border  of  the  Holy  Land,  commanding  their  little 
camp,  discovering  the  secret  of  antiquity.  Care 
and  poverty  had  dogged  their  youth  :  for  Ernest 
the  dull  hours  of  the  usher,  or  the  dusty  fatigues 
of  the  sub-librarian ;  for  Henriette,  exile  and 
dependence  amid  plain  after  plain  of  sand  and 
snow,  endless  forests  of  foreign  pines.  And  now, 
united,  the  great  cities  of  Phoenicia  lay  at  their 
feet,  and  over  the  last  blue  mountain  rim,  Pales- 
tine !  A  new  energy,  a  light  of  youth,  animated 
them  both.  Henriette,  the  recluse  of  the  Val-de- 
Grace,  would  spend  ten  hours  at  a  stretch  on 
horseback,  nor  speak  of  fatigue. 

The  autumn  in  Syria  is  long  and  full  of  charm. 
All  the  rocks  of  the  gorges  of  Lebanon  are 
wreathed  with  cyclamen.  The  plains  towards 
Amrit  are  blue  and  red  with  flowers.  From  the 
heights  of  the  mountains,  which  rise  here,  tier 
upon  tier,  in  a  quadruple  range,  the  eye  glances 
across  chasms  and  forests,  towards  a  sea  more 
brilliant  than  the  freshest  blossoms.  Cascades 


A  MISSION  TO  PHOENICIA  135 


and  torrents,  clear  as  crystal,  cool  as  ice,  leap 
from  their  rocky  sources,  and  dash  down  the  sun- 
baked mountain-side,  filling  the  hot  air  with  the 
sparkle  of  their  spray.  A  spectacle  so  extra- 
ordinary forced  itself  upon  the  long  slow  gaze  of 
Renan.  His  unremarking  eyes  at  last  observed 
the  vision  of  natural  beauty,  absorbed  it,  retained 
it.  Syria  completed  the  work  begun  by  Italy  : 
Renan  was  henceforth  to  be  one  of  the  subtlest, 
one  of  the  profoundest  painters  of  nature.  Rousseau 
himself  has  not  more  exquisite  tints  on  his  palette. 
And,  like  Jean-Jacques,  he  reproduces  less  a  land- 
scape than  his  own  dream  of  a  landscape  floating 
in  some  pellucid  haze  of  sentiment  through  which 
reality  takes  on  a  prestige  more  magical,  an  air 
of  mystery  and  remoteness,  peculiar  less  to  the 
landscape  than  the  seer. 

The  climate,  though  beautiful,  is  unhealthy  in 
its  brusque  alternances  of  heat  and  cold.  Some- 
times sudden  gusts  of  neuralgia,  terrible,  appalling 
to  witness,  would  sweep  over  Henriette  Renan, 
lay  her  prostrate  for  some  hours,  or  some  days, 
and  she  would  rise  up  again  with  unabated 
courage  and  resume  their  hard,  happy,  adven- 
turous life.  Seated  squarely  on  her  horse,  she 
skirted  the  precipices  of  Lebanon,  and  never 
paled.  Rough  fare,  the  huts  of  the  mountain 
for  shelter,  constant  transitions  from  the  burning 


136       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


sunshine  to  the  sepulchral  chill  of  the  gorges  in 
shadow,  were  but  as  welcome  episodes  in  a  con- 
tinual pleasure.  At  Tyre,  the  high  pavilion  she 
occupied  was  rocked  by  the  winds.  The  spec- 
tacle of  their  little  camp,  lost  in  the  desert,  filled 
her  at  night  with  a  religious  exaltation. 

In  January  1861,  Madame  Ernest  Renan 
came  out  to  join  them.  Together  they  set  out 
in  the  spring  for  Palestine.  Often  at  night, 
their  tent  set  under  the  shadow  of  Mount  Carmel, 
or  by  the  deep  hollow  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee, 
the  travellers  read  the  series  of  Pilgrims'  Psalms, 
which  Renan  was  to  recall  a  few  months  later 
in  writing  the  Life  of  fesus. 

"  For  those  provincial  families  the  journey  to 
Jerusalem  was  a  solemnity  full  of  sweetness. 
Psalm  after  psalm  records  the  happiness  of  these 
pilgrim  households  travelling  together  in  the 
spring  time  over  hill  and  down  dale,  with  the 
sacred  splendour  of  Jerusalem  at  the  journey's 
end.  '  How  happy  are  brethren  who  dwell  to- 
gether in  amity ! '  .  .  .  The  last  stage  of  all, 
Ai'n-el-Harami^,  is  full  of  charm  and  melancholy. 
Few  impressions  rival  that  of  the  traveller  who 
sets  his  camp  there  at  nightfall.  The  valley 
is  narrow  and  sombre ;  a  dark  water  drips  from 
the  walls  of  the  rocks,  pierced  with  tombs.  It  is, 
I  think,  the  *  Vale  of  Tears ' — the  ( gorge  of 


A  MISSION  TO  PHOENICIA  137 


dripping  waters/  which  is  celebrated  in  the  ex- 
quisite 83rd  Psalm  as  one  of  the  stations  on 
the  way,  and  in  which  the  tender  sadness  of 
mediaeval  mysticism  saw  an  image  of  the  life  of 
man.  Early  on  the  morrow  the  caravan  will 
reach  Jerusalem.  Even  to-day  the  thought  re- 
animates the  caravan,  renders  the  evening  short 
and  the  travellers'  slumber  light." 

Jerusalem,  tragic,  arid,  barren,  seemed  then  as 
the  law  after  the  Gospel,  as  the  letter  after  the  % 
spirit,  and  sharpened  by  contrast  the  souvenir  of 
Galilean  grace.  In  this  harsh  environment,  the 
newness,  the  freshness,  the  divine  originality  of 
the  New  Testament  appear  more  apparent  still. 
Ever  since  his  year  of  spiritual  crisis  Renan  had 
pondered  in  his  heart  a  Life  of  Jesus,  unlike  any 
yet  written,  which,  while  hiding  nothing  of  the 
textual  errors  and  apocryphs  of  the  Gospel  as 
we  possess  it,  should  set  in  high  and  clear  relief 
the  divine  character,  the  exquisite  inventions  in 
moral  sentiment  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity. 
Here,  in  the  Holy  Land,  that  great  figure  never 
ceased  upon  his  inner  vision.  No  saint  in  his 
cell,  no  Crusader,  was  ever  more  fervently  haunted 
by  Christ  Jesus  than  this  unfrocked  Churchman, 
this  sceptical  archaeologist,  busied  with  the  details 
of  a  scientific  mission.  In  the  desolate  Galilee 
of  a  Moslem  rule,  his  mind's  eye    noted  the 


138       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


flowery  Paradise  described  by  Josephus  where 
the  walnut  and  the  date  palm  grew  together. 
On  the  abandoned  lake,  with  its  one  ruined 
ferry-boat,  he  saw  the  sails  of  Andrew  and 
Peter,  the  prosperous  fishermen  of  old.  On  the 
little  promontories,  overgrown  with  tamarisk 
and  oleander,  he  followed  the  trace  of  the 
very  footsteps  of  the  Son  of  Man.  Far  to 
the  north  the  ravines  of  Mount  Hermon  are 
drawn  in  dazzling  silver  against  the  sky.  The 
horizon,  at  least,  has  not  altered  in  these  two 
thousand  years. 

After  the  month  of  May  the  heat  in  Syria 
becomes  oppressive.  Galilee,  deforested,  deserted, 
is  now  so  naked  that  the  caravan  reckons  over- 
night where  it  shall  find  a  spot  of  shade  for  the 
mid-day  meal  on  the  morrow.  The  journey 
back  to  Beyrouth  cost  the  travellers  much 
fatigue.  Mme.  Ernest  Renan,  enceinte,  re- 
turned to  France  in  the  course  of  July.  Her 
husband  and  sister-in-law  would  have  done  well 
to  accompany  her.  Almost  every  member  of 
the  mission  engaged  under  M.  Renan  in  the 
excavations  had  already  fallen  dangerously  ill 
with  pestilential  malaria.  And  the  worst  heat 
of  the  summer  was  to  come.  But  the  sense  of 
scientific  duty,  always  so  strong  in  Renan, 
which  over  and  over  again  prompted  him  to  a 


A  MISSION  TO  PHOENICIA  139 


course  of  action  disastrous  to  his  interests,  urged 
him  to  remain  on  the  parched  and  feverish  Syrian 
coast  in  order  to  supervise  the  shipping  of  his 
archaeological  treasure,  in  order,  also,  to  complete 
his  exploration  of  the  upper  range  of  Lebanon. 
He  meditated,  even,  an  autumn  excursion  to 
Cyprus.  Henriette  happier,  she  declared,  than 
ever  she  had  been  in  her  life,  Henriette,  satis- 
fied to  find  herself  still  indispensable  to  her  idol, 
remained  with  him  and  braved  —  alas  too 
courageously !  —  the  exhalations  of  a  Syrian 
autumn. 

The  implacable  sun  of  Beyrouth  drove  the 
Renans  to  the  hills.  At  Ghazir  they  found 
green  pastures,  fresh  snow  from  the  mountains, 
wholesome  springs,  and  a  little  house  with  a 
pergola.  Here,  in  the  utmost  peace  conceivable 
on  earth,  Renan  began  his  Life  of  Jesus.  All 
day  long  he  sat  in  the  cool  shadow  of  his  Syrian 
home  absorbed,  intoxicated  by  that  inner  dream 
which  little  by  little  took  shape  and  lived  before 
his  eyes.  A  New  Testament,  a  Josephus,  com- 
prised his  library ;  but  the  book  of  the  East 
was  open  before  him  ;  but  the  very  past,  familiar 
through  a  hundred  texts  and  inscriptions,  rose 
before  him  more  real  than  the  actual  moment. 
Thrown  full  length  on  his  Syrian  rug,  his  books 
and  papers  scattered  round  him,  he  wrote  hour 


HO       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


after  hour  in  the  fervour  of  a  veritable  inspiration. 
Henriette  was  his  perpetual  confidant,  as  soon  as 
the  page  was  written  she  copied  it  fair.  When 
at  last  the  night  fell,  the  clear,  magnificent 
Oriental  night,  brother  and  sister  rose  and 
sought  their  terrace  on  the  house  roof.  There 
they  would  speak  at  last  of  the  day's  silent 
work,  and  she  would  make  her  reflections,  often 
profound,  always  pregnant  with  that  fine,  moral 
tact  of  which  she  had  the  secret.  "  Many  of 
them,"  her  brother  has  said,  "  were  to  me  as  veri- 
table revelations." 

"  This  book,"  she  would  say,  "  I  shall  love. 
Because  we  have  done  it  together.  And  because 
I  like  it !  " 

Days  of  earnest  thought,  nights  of  dreaming 
scarcely  less  fecund.  When,  in  the  first  days 
of  September,  the  Renans  were  compelled  to 
return  to  Beyrouth  the  book  was  three  parts 
written,  and  Christ  on  the  eve  of  the  last 
journey  to  Jerusalem. 

Alas !  the  soul  and  the  body  have  not  the 
same  requirements.  An  immense  moral  satis- 
faction had  not  preserved  the  health  of  Henriette 
Renan.  The  cruel  neuralgia  from  which  she 
suffered  was  perhaps  even  aggravated  by  so  intense 
a  nervous  strain.  Yet  had  the  Cato  started  at 
the  date  fixed,  the  sea  winds  and  the  air  of  home 


A  MISSION  TO  PHOENICIA  141 


might  even  yet  have  revived  her.  As  chance 
would  have  it,  some  ill-hap  delayed  the  ship  one 
week.  Made  aware  of  this  postponement,  the 
Renans  started  for  Gebeil  (Byblos),  in  order  to 
see  to  the  shipping  of  two  last  sarcophagi,  which 
they  had  given  up  as  untransportable.  They 
secured  their  spoil,  and  climbed  the  hill  to  find 
shade  and  rest  at  Amschit,  that  Syrian  village, 
dear  to  Henriette,  where  they  had  spent  together 
the  first  few  weeks  of  their  Eastern  sojourn. 
Here,  on  the  Tuesday,  17th  September,  Henriette 
fell  ill  with  a  vague  sort  of  intermittent  fever, 
accompanied  by  neuralgic  pains.  But  she  was 
so  accustomed  to  neuralgia  !  She  had  often 
seemed  more  violently  ill.  Even  on  the  Wednes- 
day, the  surgeon  of  the  Cato  saw  no  reason  for 
anxiety.  When  Ernest  Renan  could  be  spared 
from  the  wharves  of  Gebeil,  he  sat  at  her  side, 
she  uncomplaining,  he  undisquieted,  and  continued 
the  work  they  had  both  so  deep  at  heart.  He 
had  reached  the  chapters  of  the  Passion.  But 
on  the  Thursday  he  too  fell  ill  with  the  same 
mysterious  disease,  turn  by  turn  mortal  and 
trivial,  which  seizes  on  the  victim,  and  looses 
him  again,  as  a  cat  plays  with  a  mouse.  Un- 
happily the  surgeon  of  the  Cato  always  arrived 
when  his  patients  were  in  their  languid  intervals 
of  remittance.    He  did  not  know  the  pernicious 


142       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


malaria  of  the  Syrian  coast.  He  foresaw  no 
serious  consequences.  But  on  Saturday  morning 
M.  Renan,  when  he  dragged  himself  from  his 
couch  in  the  sitting-room  to  his  sister's  side, 
meaning  to  work  beside  her  at  his  Life  of  fesus, 
was  terrified  by  a  new  feature  of  the  malady 
— the  heart  appeared  affected.  He  dispatched 
a  brief  note  to  the  surgeon  of  the  Cato.  He 
had  time  to  remark  the  Maronite  peasants 
passing  his  window  on  their  way  to  church,  and 
in  this  foreign  half-savage  country,  the  familiar 
sight  filled  him  with  a  feeling  of  utter  desolation 
and  helplessness  which  he  has  since  recorded. 
Then  he  himself  fell  down  unconscious  among 
his  scattered  books  and  papers. 

When,  at  nightfall,  the  French  doctor  arrived 
at  Amschit,  he  found  brother  and  sister,  both 
apparently  dead,  laid  out  upon  the  carpet  of 
the  little  salon,  watched  over  by  Antoun,  their 
Syrian  man-servant.  The  ship  surgeon,  dumb- 
foundered  by  this  strange  neuralgia,  apparently 
of  an  irregular,  fatal  sort,  retreated  hastily  to 
Beyrouth  in  search  of  more  experienced  advice. 
Later  in  the  day  the  French  commandant  and 
the  French  doctors,  seriously  alarmed,  climbed 
the  steep  road  to  Amschit.  When  they  arrived, 
the  unconscious  bodies  of  Ernest  and  Henriette 
Renan  had  been  transported  from  their  rooms  to 


A  MISSION  TO  PHCENICIA  143 


the  large  reception-room  of  Zakhia,  their  wealthy 
Maronite  host.  There  they  lay,  stretched  out 
on  the  floor,  the  family  of  the  worthy  Zakhia 
grouped  around  them,  wailing  them  as  dead.  It 
was  a  scene  of  a  poignant  barbaric  melancholy. 

Henriette  Renan  never  recovered  consciousness. 
She  died  on  the  Tuesday  morning.  Her  brother 
awoke  from  his  long  swoon  about  an  hour  before 
she  expired.  But  he  awoke  to  a  troubled  dream 
of  things,  clearly  aware  of  nothing ;  and  Henri- 
ette died  without  his  hand  in  hers.  For  days 
after  he  babbled  of  green  fields,  imagining  that 
he  was  resting  writh  his  sister  by  the  springs  of 
the  river  Adonis,  under  the  great  walnuts  that 
stand  above  the  waterfall.  She  was  seated 
beside  him  in  the  deep  grass ;  he  held  to  her 
lips  a  cup  of  ice-cold  water.  When  he  stirred 
in  his  dream  it  was  to  ask,  "  How  is  my  sister  ?  " 
They  answered,  "  Very  ill ! "  He  smiled,  and 
fell  again  to  dreaming.  When  at  last  they  said, 
"  She  is  dead,"  he  barely  understood.  No 
merciful  silence  was  possible,  for  the  Cato  was 
waiting  in  harbour,  and  so  soon  as  the  invalid 
could  bear  the  journey,  he  was  put  in  a  litter 
and  carried  seaward.  Henriette  he  left  behind 
him.  She  sleeps  in  the  vault  of  Zakhia,  under 
the  palms  of  Amschit ;  distant,  in  death  as  in 
life,  from  the  Breton  land  she  loved  so  well. 


144       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  REN  AN 


As  a  dream  within  a  dream,  there  remained 
to  haunt  her  brother  the  thought  that  Henriette 
had  been  spirited  away  from  him  alive,  buried 
in  the  caverns  of  Lebanon  while  still  in  her  living 
trance.  For  the  likeness  of  that  swoon  to  the 
last  sleep  filled  him  with  fearful  apprehensions, 
and  he  had  never  looked  on  Henriette's  dead 
face.  Even  the  presence  of  four  French  doctors 
at  her  deathbed  could  not  entirely  reassure  him. 
And  nearly  twenty  years  after,  in  the  Dream 
of  Leoline^  he  speaks  out  this  inner  anguish : 
"  Ah,  see,  her  eyes  open  !  Her  long  white  hand 
moves  out  of  the  coffin.  Her  face  is  pale  as  of 
old,  and  her  eyes  swim  in  tears.  Come,  kiss  me  ! 
Dear,  I  have  so  much  to  tell  thee  !  How  many 
years  have  passed  since  thy  mortal  fever.  How 
weary  thou  must  be  with  the  long  journey  from 
thy  grave.  God  knows  that  in  all  my  joys 
I  have  never  ceased  to  long  for  thy  presence ; 
not  one  happy  moment  but  I  would  have  shared 
it  with  thee !  Ah,  white  shadow,  open  thine 
eyes,  though  it  be  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  ;  only 
one  quarter  of  an  hour  in  which  to  weep  with 
thee,  and  expiate  my  faults  towards  thee,  or 
suffer  thy  pious  reproaches.  O,  pierced  heart, 
how  hast  thou  made  me  suffer !  For  so  many 
hours,  bitter  and  sweet,  give  me  at  least  a  glance." 

There  is  no  grief  so  terrible  as  to  feel  that, 


A  MISSION  TO  PHOENICIA  145 


however  innocently,  we  have  abandoned  our  dearest 
in  their  hour  of  need.  It  is  the  grief  of  Peter. 
Renan  never  forgot  that  his  sister  died  alone. 
For  many  years,  she,  at  least,  did  not  forsake 
him  ;  for  those  whom  we  lose  by  death  do  not 
quit  us  all  at  once.  All  the  company  of  true 
mourners  may  echo  the  words  of  Hippolytus, 
//,s/£w  pporeiag  tfpotftfzffwv  b^iXiag  .  .  .  kXvuv  fih  avbrjv,  o^cc 
8bv£  bpoov  to  tor.  We  feel  an  irresistible  aegis  above 
us.  An  inner  presence  is  more  penetrating  and 
more  intimate  than  we  ever  knew  it,  for  the  dead 
speak  to  us  now  from  within.  Our  continual 
meditation  on  a  vanished  object  recreates  it  in 
ourselves.  We  grow  like  the  dead  we  adore ; 
their  spirit  finds  a  home  in  us,  and  appears  to  use 
us  and  direct  us  at  its  will.  But  in  the  end  our 
natural  personality  reasserts  itself ;  only  very  few 
souls  are  transformed  into  the  image  they  recall. 
Renan's  character,  so  sensitive,  so  impressionable, 
had  none  the  less  a  ground-work  of  singular  un- 
modifiableness ;  even  the  kindred  spirit  of  Henriette, 
so  like  his  own,  could  not  permanently  change 
that  stubborn  essence.  .  .  .  Time  passes ;  the 
dead  remain  as  dear ;  but  their  influence  per- 
vades us  less  and  less,  shrinks  gradually  back  to 
its  own  centre,  leaves  us — as  the  fields  are  left  on 
the  retiring  of  a  flood — fertilized,  no  doubt,  and 
richer,  but  the  same  as  before,  land  and  not 

K 


146       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


water,  ourselves  and  not  another,  for  the  rest 
of  our  time.  .  .  .  Even  Love-in-Death  cannot 
create  a  new  spirit  within  us. 

So  great,  however,  was  the  influence  of  Henriette, 
that,  for  years  afterwards,  not  only  her  brother 
acted  as  she  would  have  bid  him  act,  but — far 
rarer  triumph  of  love  ! — he  thought  as  she  would 
have  bid  him  think,  in  all  seriousness,  in  all 
tenderness,  with  a  remote  and  noble  elevation — 
checking  as  they  rose  those  impulses  towards 
irony,  towards  frivolity,  towards  scepticism,  which 
Henriette  had  not  loved. 


PART  III 


CHAPTER  I 


THE  COLLEGE  OF  FRANCE 
ITH  half  his  heart  in  the  mysterious  king- 


*  *  dom  of  the  dead,  and  himself  still  pallid 
with  the  reflection  of  that  unseen  world,  Renan 
set  himself  to  finish  his  Life  of  fesus — the  book 
which  Henriette  had  loved,  "  because  we  wrote 
it  together."  Never  had  the  problems  of  religion 
appeared  so  all-important  in  his  eyes  ;  never  had 
he  felt  nearer  to  that  infinite  and  eternal  energy 
which  beats  at  the  heart  of  things  :  One  in  All. 
"  The  loss  of  my  brave  companion  attached  me 
closer  than  ever  to  studies  which  had  cost  so 
dear.  ...  I  have  looked  Death  in  the  face. 
The  pygmy  cares  which  eat  our  lives  away  are 
henceforth  meaningless  to  me.  I  have  brought 
back  from  the  threshold  of  the  infinite  a  livelier 
faith  than  I  ever  knew  in  the  superior  reality  of 
the  world  of  the  Ideal.  It  alone  exists :  the 
physical  world  appears  to  exist.  .  .  .  The 
older  I  grow,  the  dearer  I  have  at  heart  the  one 
problem  which  ever  keeps  its  profound  signifi- 
cance, its  enchanting  novelty.    The  Infinite  sur- 


ISO       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


rounds  us,  overlaps  us,  and  haunts  us.  Bubbles 
on  the  surface  of  existence,  we  feel  a  mysterious 
kinship  with  our  Father  the  Abyss.  God  is 
revealed,  by  no  miracle,  but  in  our  hearts  whence, 
as  St  Paul  has  said,  an  unutterable  moaning  goes 
up  to  Him  without  ceasing.  And  this  sentiment 
of  our  obscure  relationship  to  the  universe,  of  our 
Divine  descendance,  graven  in  fire  in  every  human 
heart,  is  the  source  of  all  virtue,  the  reason  we 
love,  and  the  one  thing  that  makes  our  life  worth 
living.  Jesus  is,  in  my  eyes,  the  greatest  of  men, 
because  He  developed  this  dim  feeling  with  an 
unprecedented,  an  unsurpassable  power.  His 
religion  holds  the  secret  of  the  future.  .  .  . 
To  transport  religion  beyond  the  supernatural 
— to  separate  the  ever-triumphant  cause  of  Faith 
from  the  vain  forlorn  hope  of  the  Miraculous,  is  to 
render  a  service  to  them  that  believe.  Religion 
is  necessary — as  eternal  as  poetry  or  love  :  Re- 
ligion will  survive  the  destruction  of  all  her 
illusions.  I  say  it  with  confidence  :  the  day  will 
come  when  I  shall  have  the  sympathy  of  really 
religious  souls."1 

Henriette  had  said  :  write  the  Life  of  Jesus. 
Henriette  had  also  said  :  maintain  your  candi- 
dature to  the  Chair  of  Hebrew  and  accept  no 
other  chair.    Behold,  her  least  utterance  had  now 

1  Questions  Contemporaries 195  ..  .  237  .  .  .  232  .  .  .  235. 


THE  COLLEGE  OF  FRANCE  151 


become  oracular.  As  Renan  himself  wrote  to  the 
Professors  of  the  College  of  France  : — "  I  saw  an 
imperative  revelation  in  the  counsel  of  a  beloved 
person  who  appeared  to  me  haloed  in  the  sacred 
aureole  of  death."  Ah,  why  was  Henriette  not  by 
his  side  !  She  would  have  bid  him  keep  distinct 
these  two  noble  ambitions — bid  him  speak  of 
Jesus  in  his  book,  analyse  Semitic  philology 
at  the  College  of  France.  But  at  bottom,  for 
all  his  airs  of  indecision,  Renan  burned  to  give 
a  reason  for  the  faith  that  was  in  him. 

At  last,  after  nearly  five  years  of  silence,  the 
Minister  of  Public  Instruction  demanded  the  lists 
from  the  College  of  France  and  the  Academy  of 
Inscriptions.  Renan's  name  headed  either.  And 
a  decree  of  the  1  ith  January  1 862,  proclaimed  him 
Professor  of  Hebrew  at  the  College  of  France. 

This  election  was  passionately  unpopular  among 
the  Catholics,  and  for  due  cause  :  the  Chair  of 
Hebrew  being  in  fact  a  chair  of  Biblical  criti- 
cism as  we  have  said.  But  it  was  also,  oddly 
enough,  unpopular  among  the  students  of  the 
Latin  Quarter,  indignant  that  Renan,  their  Renan, 
should  have  accepted  office  at  the  Emperor's 
hands.  Was  he  going  to  turn  his  coat?  At 
the  mere  idea  they  were  all  ready  to  shout  with 
Robert  Browning — 

"  Just  for  a  handful  of  silver  he  left  us." 


152       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  REN  AN 


It  was  clear  there  would  be  at  his  opening 
lecture  what  the  Latin  Quarter  loves  to  call  a 
Chahut.  Renan's  opinions  were  known.  If  the 
Church  was  conspicuous  by  her  absence,  the 
young  Catholic  party  was  there  en  masse  to 
avenge  her.  And  the  Liberal  students  were  no 
less  suspicious  and  defiant.  The  University,  not 
wholly  sympathetic  to  this  unfrocked  Seminarist  of 
supposed  Radical  opinions  ;  the  world  of  fashion, 
attracted  by  Renan's  literary  renown,  helped  to 
throng  the  hall.  The  lecturer  appeared,  his  head 
in  a  dream,  his  mind  full  of  Henriette,  so  cruelly 
absent,  of  the  Life  of  Jesus,  of  his  old  dreams  at 
last  come  true.  He  was  barely  aware  of  the  various 
causes  of  offence  which  he  had  given.  He  just 
glanced  at  the  amphitheatre  crammed  from  floor 
to  ceiling — at  the  students,  clinging  in  clusters 
to  the  window  ledges,  shouting  news  of  the 
lecture  to  the  crowd,  black  in  the  street.  ... 
I  have  heard  it  all  described  so  vividly  that  it 
seems  to  me  I,  too,  was  there  ! 

Then  he  began  a  parallel  between  the  Semite 
and  the  Aryan.  Anti-semitism  was  not  yet  a 
fashion ;  there  was  nothing  here  to  rail  at. 
The  face  of  the  audience  fell  :  was  it  this  they 
had  come  out  into  the  wilderness  to  hear  ? 
The  lecturer  continued  — "  The  Political  Idea 
is    Aryan.     The    French   Revolution,   for  in- 


THE  COLLEGE  OF  FRANCE  153 


stance,  may  often  have  compromised  Liberty, 
but"  .  .  .  (Here  the  Latin  Quarter  saw  its 
opportunity.) 

"  Respect  the  Revolution,  sir  !  "  thundered  from 
a  hundred  throats.  A  quarter  of  an  hour  later 
an  audacious  comparison  of  King  David  to  an 
"  energetic  Captain  of  Adventure "  threw  a 
bomb  into  the  Catholic  camp.  By  this  time 
the  Liberal  students  were  aware  that  the 
lecturer  was  still  their  leader ;  one  and  all 
they  became  forthwith  his  clamorous  partisans. 
Their  support  alone  rendered  the  delivery  of 
the  lecture  possible. 

Was  it  well  ?  Better  perhaps  if,  at  the  outset, 
an  unjust  turbulence  had  drowned  the  orator's 
voice.  For  one  phrase  in  his  speech  —  one 
sentence  which  nowadays  any  Liberal  Christian 
would  hear  with  tolerance,  if  not  with  approval 
—  falling  just  at  that  impassioned  moment 
on  prejudiced  ears,  began  a  sequence  of 
injustice,  a  series  of  misunderstandings,  which 
were  to  make  of  the  mild  impartial  scholar 
the  notorious  martyr  of  the  Empire,  the  demi- 
god of  a  Republic  he  only  half  approved. 
To  this  day,  in  his  native  place,  Renan  is 
chiefly  remembered  as  "  a  great  Republican " 
by  those  who  have  never  read  a  line  of  his 
writings. 


154       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


I  can  imagine  Henriette's  phantom  mur- 
muring— 

"  Ni  cet  exces  d'honneur  ni  cette  indignite  ! n 

This  was  not  the  future  she  had  foreseen, 
illustrious  yet  retired  ;  the  life  of  a  Le  Nain  de 
Tillemont  secluded  in  some  park  of  Seine-et- 
Oise,  whose  peaceful  charmilles  are  not  too  far 
from  the  libraries  of  Paris,  whose  lofty  grey- 
panelled  chambers  afford  space  and  quiet  for  a 
voluminous  research.  Such  a  life,  irradiate  with 
the  limpid  light  of  Science,  productive  of  labours 
which  should  satisfy  countless  generations  of 
scholars,  and  never  be  profaned  by  the  vulgarity 
of  fame,  such  a  life  she  would  approve.  She 
would  have  found  something  gross  in  the  im- 
mense celebrity  which  began,  on  that  21st  of 
February  1862,  in  the  amphitheatre  of  the 
College  of  France. 

What  a  riot !  what  a  tumult !  Only  here  and 
there  we  catch  a  word,  half  drowned  in  hisses 
and  acclamations.  .  .  .  "  An  incomparable  Man, 
whom  some,  struck  by  His  exceptional  mission, 
call  a  God  .  .  .  victim  of  His  ideal  .  .  .  deified 
in  His  death  .  .  .  founded  the  Eternal  Religion 
of  Humanity.  .  .  .  No  man  before  Him  had 
reached  so  high  a  standard  of  perfection.  .  .  . 
For  the  time  is  come  when  ye  shall  worship 


THE  COLLEGE  OF  FRANCE  155 


Me  no  longer  along  this  mountain  nor  at 
Jerusalem,  but  in  Spirit  and  in  Truth."1 

St  Paul  did  not  disdain  to  say:  "Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  a  Man  sent  from  God  among  ye" 
(Acts  ii.  22).  Bossuel,  after  him,  wrote  with- 
out reproach  of  Christ  as  "a  man  of  admirable 
mildness."  But  Renan's  "  homme  incomparable  " 
appeared  the  thrown  gauntlet  of  the  defiant 
apostate.  The  Church  was  not  slow  to  take  it 
up,  nor  the  students  to  defend  it ;  the  con- 
fusion grew  deafening.  The  lecture  over, 
Renan  escaped  by  some  back  way  to  the 
house  of  a  friend,  haunted  by  the  dread  of  a 
public  ovation.  The  piece  was  played  without 
Hamlet ;  the  students,  en  masse,  swarmed  to  the 
Rue  Madame,  where  the  Renans  lived,  and  (true 
Frenchmen  !)  demanded,  in  default  of  their  idol,  a 
glimpse  of  his  mother.  M.  Egger,  who  was 
calling  at  the  time,  harangued  the  crowd  in 
terms  sufficiently  vague  to  disguise  from  the 
old  lady  (a  devotee  of  Throne  and  Altar) 
the  full  scandal  of  her  son's  success.  He 
need  not  have  been  at  the  pains.  The  dark, 
witty  old  face  had  only  its  most  benignant 
smile  for  the  turbulence  of  Ernest's  riotous 
champions. 

The  fact  remained  that  M.  Renan's  opening 

1  Melanges  d'Histoire  et  de  Voyages,  p.  18. 


1 56       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


lecture  had  disturbed  the  cause  of  public  order. 
Beset  by  the  Church,  by  the  Empress,  Napoleon 
seized  this  excuse  to  suspend  the  young  Professor 
from  his  functions.  And  Renan  continued  his 
lectures  in  his  private  study,  still,  nominally, 
Professor  at  the  College  of  France.  But  on 
the  2nd  of  June  1864,  on  opening  the  morn- 
ing paper,  he  saw  his  name.  He  was  trans- 
ferred from  his  chair  at  the  College  of  France 
to  a  post  of  sub-librarian  at  the  Imperial  Library. 
The  thing  came  on  him  as  a  thunder-clap. 
And  insult  was  added  to  the  injury  by  an 
official  note,  observing  that  this  new  appoint- 
ment was  more  in  accordance  with  the  dignity 
of  a  distinguished  savant,  "  at  present  subject 
to  the  anomaly  of  receiving  pay  for  work 
which  he  is  not  permitted  to  perform."  Renan 
had  acquitted  himself  of  his  duty,  exactly,  if 
in  private.  The  fund  of  combativeness  which 
every  man  has  at  heart  seethed  within  him. 
He  wrote  to  the  minister,  in  a  mood  of  ferocious 
irony :  Pecunia  tua  tecum  sit  He  refused  the 
post  of  librarian,  and  maintained  his  right 
to  the  title  of  Professor  at  the  College  of 
France. 

On  the  nth  of  June  Renan  was  officially 
destituted.  He  became  one  of  the  most  popular 
members  of  the  Liberal  Opposition.  Already, 


THE  COLLEGE  OF  FRANCE  157 


in  1863,  he  had  been  invited  to  stand  for  Parlia- 
ment. In  March  of  that  year  he  wrote  to 
Michele  Amari.1 

"  I  am  preparing  my  Life  of  fesus,  which  will 
appear  in  about  two  months.  I  need  not  tell 
you  on  what  lines  it  is  written.  The  partisans 
of  miracles  will  not  be  satisfied.  I  do  not  know 
what  will  come  of  it  all !  Between  you  and 
me,  I  may  say  that  if  I  should  be  deprived  of 
my  chair  at  the  College  of  France,  it  is  probable 
I  may  be  elected  as  one  of  the  Members  for  Paris. 
I  cannot  say  that  I  am  in  love  with  the  idea.  I 
should  have  preferred  the  free  and  peaceable  career 
of  Higher  Education.  But  it  is  not  my  fault  if 
my  feet  are  set  on  another  road.  And,  if  my 
election  take  place,  it  would  have  a  meaning 
which  would  fill  me  with  satisfaction  ;  to  bring 
about  such  a  declaration,  I  am  ready  for  many 
sacrifices.  All  these  things  may  be !  I  am 
playing  a  difficult  game  and  I  do  not  see  the 
upshot." 

The  Life  of  fesus  appeared  on  the  23  rd  of 
June  1863.  Before  November,  sixty  thousand 
copies  of  it  were  in  circulation.  No  such  success 
had  as  yet  issued  from  the  printing  presses  of 
the  century.  ...  At  such  a  moment,  there  was 
something  fitting  in  the  destitution  of  Ernest 

1  Carteggio  di  Michele  Amari 2  vols.,  Turin,  1896. 


158 


LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


Renan.  The  professor  had  become  the  artist ; 
the  philologist,  the  man  of  letters  ;  the  scholar, 
the  politician.  Too  much  glory,  too  wide  an 
audience,  ill  befit  the  patient  research  of  a 
laboratory. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

npHE  Life  of  fesus  is  naturally  the  first  of 
Kenan's  seven  volumes  on  the  Origins 
of  Christianity.  Even  more  than  its  successors 
it  is  a  work,  not  of  erudition,  not  of  technical 
exegesis,  but  of  moral  and  psychological  enquiry, 
based  on  historical  documents.  Renan  was  cer- 
tainly familiar  with  the  curious  mosaic  of  Le  Nain 
de  Tillemont,  he  knew  almost  by  heart  the  New 
Testament,  he  had  read  and  re-read  the  pages 
of  Josephus  ;  to  this  foundation,  solid  if  restricted, 
he  added  a  rare  archaeological  capacity,  an  ac- 
quaintance with  the  monuments,  moneys,  and 
inscriptions  of  the  first  centuries  of  our  era  which, 
of  a  surety,  no  other  religious  historian  possesses  ; 
he  was,  moreover,  a  traveller,  whom  a  year's 
residence  in  Syria  had  accustomed  to  the  horizons, 
the  races,  and  the  character  of  the  Holy  Land  : 
the  fresh  impressions  of  his  visit  colour  every 
page ;  but,  above  all,  he  was  a  psychologist,  a 
man  who  had  once  believed,  who  had  felt  the 
pulse  of  his  soul,  with  as  much  curiosity  as 

159 


i6o       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


anguish,  during  the  long  years  in  which  that  dear 
belief  expired  :  a  man  to  whom,  even  after  its 
death,  the  impulse  of  Faith  remained  the  holiest, 
and  the  most  interesting  thing  in  the  universe. 
His  rustic  and  religious  origin  enabled  this  man 
of  science  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of  a  credulous 
country  folk,  and  to  analyse,  without  illusion, 
without  derision,  the  creative  process  of  their 
minds.  The  result  is  a  master-piece.  The 
pure  idyll  of  Galilee,  hardly  less  sacred  to  Renan 
than  to  the  most  fervent  Churchman  ;  the  Passion 
of  Jerusalem  ;  the  religious  East ;  and  philosophic 
Greece,  animating  a  Syrian  people  with  the 
spirit  of  the  Gospel  of  St  John  ;  the  dogmatic 
force  and  fervour  of  St  Paul,  supplying,  as  it  were, 
channels  and  imperishable  aqueducts  for  the  New 
Source  of  Life  which  the  rod  of  Jesus  had  set 
welling;  all  the  great  concourse  of  saints,  martyrs, 
mystics,  heretics,  and  charlatans  who  laboured 
together  blindly  in  a  Cause  superior  to  even  the 
noblest  among  them  ;  and  the  cruel  consolidating 
force  of  persecution  ;  and  Nero,  the  Antichrist, 
throwing  into  stronger  relief  the  ideal  perfec- 
tion of  Jesus :  all  this,  grouped  against  a  vast 
Mediterranean  background — Syria,  Antioch,  Alex- 
andria, Athens,  Rome — lives  and  glows  before  us 
in  the  pages  of  Renan. 

In  the  beginning  there  was  a  Life  of  unequalled 


THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST  161 


perfection.  The  origins  of  Christianity  begin  with 
the  Life  of  Jesus.  To  write  a  Life  of  fesus  has 
been  the  fatality  of  modern  theology,  for  the 
hero  of  a  biography  can  only  be  a  man.  The 
Christ,  who,  at  a  given  date,  was  born  of  Jewish 
stock,  in  the  obscure  village  of  a  distant  Roman 
protectorate  ;  who  grew  to  manhood  among 
certain  Syrian  peasants,  whose  appearance, 
education,  and  racial  character  he  shared  ; 
who  spoke  an  Aramean  dialect,  and  never 
knew  Greek ;  loses,  by  just  so  much  as  he 
gains  in  historic  precision,  the  vague  glory  of 
universal  Divinity.  The  theologian  who  would 
write  the  life  of  Jesus  should  compose  a  hymn. 
In  such  matters  the  Trisagion  alone  is  really 
orthodox. 

So  early  as  1838,  Salvador,  and  towards  i860, 
Bunsen,  had  published,  in  their  different  fashions, 
material  towards  a  history  of  the  early  Church. 
In  1840,  Littre's  translation  of  Strauss's  Life 
of  fesus  acquainted  the  French  public  with  the 
speculations  of  Tubingen.  More  than  to  any 
of  these,  Renan  owed  to  Herder  :  Herder, 
whose  philosophy  of  history  had  helped  to 
mould  his  mind.  That  elegant  philosopher, 
Christian  archaeologist,  and  philologist,  fully 
alive  to  the  literary  excellence  of  the  text  he 
examines, — that  man  of  feeling  and   ideas,  in- 

L 


1 62       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  REN  AN 


fluenced  by  his  age  and  largely  influencing  it, — 
was  a  man  after  Renan's  heart.  He  never  under- 
stood the  austere  and  hard-headed  rationalists  of 
the  school  of  Tubingen,  as  deficient  in  tact  and 
measure  as  they  are  rich  in  knowledge. 

Renan's  debt  to  Tubingen  has  been  exag- 
gerated. The  fault  and  the  charm  of  his  Life 
of  fesus  is  that  he  wrote  it  insufficiently  pre- 
pared. The  charm  —  because  its  extraordinary 
spontaneity  makes  the  book  a  sort  of  fifth  Gospel 
— the  gospel,  if  you  will,  according  to  Thomas 
Didymus.  The  pages  written  on  the  mud  floor 
of  a  Syrian  cottage,  with  Joseph  and  the  Gospels 
for  their  only  sponsors,  keep  the  freshness,  the 
life  and  the  beauty  of  their  original  inspiration. 
Renan's  Life  of  fesus  is  the  biography  of  a 
divinity  written  by  a  worshipper  still  prostrate 
before  the  dead  body  of  his  god,  but  convinced 
there  will  be  no  resurrection.  Its  superiority 
is  its  profound  religious  sentiment,  its  living, 
vibrating  atmosphere  of  the  East,  its  sense  of 
the  human  personality,  the  life  of  Jesus. 

Strauss,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  gnostic  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  All  that  he  touches 
turns  to  allegory,  myth,  and  symbol.  His 
Christ  is  an  ^Eon — a  glittering  abstraction.  The 
aureole  which  the  faith  of  the  multitude  has 
lit  around  the  face  of  Jesus  blinds  him  to  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST  163 


features  which  it  frames.  His  Saviour  is  a  logical 
deduction  from  prophecy.  We  wonder  why  the 
first  Christians  lived  hard,  and  died  harder,  for 
love  of  so  unreal  a  Messiah.  There  is  no  life 
in  these  dead  bones.  The  dogmatic  man  of 
science  has  no  sense  of  a  thing  so  delicate,  so 
fluctuating,  so  spontaneous,  so  mysterious,  as  the 
birth  of  a  faith. 

But  only  a  German  university  can  produce  the 
sum  of  labour  necessary  to  collect,  control,  revise 
and  criticise  the  vast  material  of  any  given  his- 
tory. If,  when  he  began  his  Life  of  fesus,  Renan 
had  been  better  acquainted  with  the  researches 
of  Strauss,  Baur,  Hilgenfeld,  Reuss,  Schwegler, 
Ewald,  Zeller,  and  other  erudites,  he  would  not 
have  taken  a  document  of,  we  suppose,  the  end 
of  the  first  century  for  a  contemporary  narrative 
of  the  life  of  Christ.  A  characteristic  preference 
for  ideas  over  facts,  an  affinity  for  the  man  who 
philosophises  about  events  rather  than  for  him 
who  simply  records  them,  led  Renan  to  lay  the 
greatest  stress  on  the  Gospel  according  to  St 
John.  Later  on  he  saw  the  error  of  his  ways, 
and,  with  the  good  faith  he  always  showed,  he 
recast  many  passages  of  his  original  work  :  after 
the  thirteenth  edition  the  difference  is  striking. 
But  something  undecided,  embarrassed,  clings  to 
the  work,  which  I  consider  inferior  to  at  least 


1 64       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


three  of  the  volumes  which  were  to  follow  it — the 
exquisite  Apostles ',  so  humane  and  so  tender  in  its 
feeling  of  human  brotherhood  ;  St  Paul,  a  study 
in  sociology  and  in  the  psychology  of  geography  ; 
Antichrist,  a  magnificent  historical  painting.  The 
Life  of  fesus  contains  incomparable  passages,  but 
the  whole  does  not  carry  conviction.  This  Christ 
is  too  Celtic,  too  German  ;  he  is  too  much 
like  Ernest  Renan.  And  the  writer's  attitude 
is  not  clear.  He  is  not  a  Catholic,  so  much  is 
evident  since  he  denies  the  divinity  of  Christ ; 
but  he  is  also  not  a  free-thinker,  a  disinterested 
historical  student ;  for  his  Christ  is  more  than 
the  founder  of  a  great  religion,  he  is  something 
quite  apart  from,  quite  above  and  beyond  such 
human  sons  of  God  as  Moses,  Mahomet,  or 
Buddha.  Renan  will  none  of  them.  "  Christi- 
anity," he  declares,  "  has  become  almost  the 
synonym  of  religion  ;  all  that  is  attempted  out- 
side its  great  and  fertile  tradition  is  doomed  to 
sterility.  .  .  .  Christ  is  the  creator  of  the  eternal 
religion  of  humanity."  This  is  limiting  the 
future.  The  divine  essence  has  more  than  one 
manifestation,  and  in  the  million  years  of  man's 
progress  may  reveal  itself  in  many  ways.  On 
the  lips  of  an  unbeliever,  so  absolute  an  affirma- 
tion is  more  than  incongruous — even  a  little 


THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST  165 


exasperating.  And  occasionally  Renan  reminds 
us  of  some  inconsolable  widower  who,  after  the 
stormiest  married  life,  waxes  eloquent  of  the 
departed.  If  the  marriage  was  so  impossible, 
why  these  tears  ?  But  if  the  poor  man  be  sincere, 
he  will  not  listen  to  you. 

Renan  was  sincere,  and  in  the  things  of  the 
heart  there  is  no  magic  like  sincerity.  So  heart- 
felt, so  hopeless,  his  pious  unbelief  took  the  world 
by  storm.  For  the  world  is  full  of  men  and 
women  who  once  believed,  and  who  keep  green 
and  strown  with  flowers  the  tomb  of  a  dead  ideal. 
Here  was  a  man  who  could  speak  the  dumb 
word  in  their  hearts ;  a  man  whose  lips  the 
Eternal  had  touched  with  his  fiery  coal ;  a  man 
who  cried  no  more,  as  we  all  cry — d  a  domine, 
nescio  loquil  Genius  was  in  the  book,  and 
sincerity,  and  a  very  tender  reverence.  As  the 
Empress  said  to  Madame  Cornu,  in  great  surprise, 
when  at  last  she  had  read  the  maligned  volume  : 
"  It  can  do  no  harm  to  believers  ;  to  unbelievers 
it  can  only  do  good." 

The  most  beautiful  pages  of  the  Life  of  fesus 
open  the  succeeding  volume,  the  Apostles,  and 
treat  of  the  life-after-death  of  our  Lord.  We 
doubt  if  there  exist  in  any  language  more  ex- 
quisite  pages  of  religious   psychology.  Here, 


i66       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


again,  it  is,  from  the  historical  point  of  view,  un- 
fortunate that  Renan  should  have  followed  the 
narrative  according  to  St  John.  As  was  often 
the  case,  the  artist  in  him  tempted  the  historian, 
and  the  historian  yielded.  For  the  version  of 
St  John  is  infinitely  more  pathetic,  more  probable, 
more  lovely  than  the  versions  of  the  synoptic 
Gospels.  And  doubtless  the  narrative  was  in- 
spired by  an  authentic  oral  tradition.  But,  in 
a  question  of  history,  a  scientific  historian  has 
no  right  to  choose  a  page,  however  beautiful, 
of  a  later  writer,  in  place  of  a  prosaic  narrative 
copied  from  a  lost  recital  possibly  contemporary 
with  the  event  described.  If  Renan  had  been, 
as  single-mindedly  as  he  believed  the  sole  servant 
of  Truth,  he  would  have  chosen  Mark  or  Luke 
for  his  guide  in  this  matter. 

But  if  we  may  question  Renan's  judgment 
in  the  criticism  of  his  texts,  we  can  only  marvel 
at  the  extraordinary  ingenuity  with  which  he 
interprets  them.  With  all  the  piety  of  the 
Christian,  with  all  the  scruple  of  the  man  of 
science,  he  gives  an  explanation  of  the  Resur- 
rection which  leaves  no  least  suspicion  of  fraud 
to  blur  the  aureole  of  our  dearest  saints,  and  yet 
sets  an  event,  which  we  cannot  accept  as  super- 
natural, in  accordance  with  the  normal  laws  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST  167 


things.  The  vision  of  Mary  Magdalene  accom- 
plished the  necessary  miracle — Christ  had  arisen. 
"  In  these  crises  of  the  miraculous,  it  is  easy 
enough  to  see  what  another  has  seen.  The  one 
merit  is  to  see  before  the  others,  for  those  that 
come  after  model  their  vision  on  the  received 
type.  It  is  the  peculiarity  of  fine  organisa- 
tions to  see  promptly,  exactly,  and  in  the  true 
line  of  things.  The  glory  of  the  Resurrection 
belongs  to  Mary  Magdalene.  After  Jesus,  she, 
more  than  any  other,  laid  the  foundations  of 
Christianity.  The  shadow  which  her  delicate  senses 
perceived — nay,  created- — still  shelters  the  world. 
Queen  and  patroness  of  idealists,  she  knew,  as 
no  other  has  known,  how  to  affirm  her  own 
ideal,  and  to  force  upon  others  the  sacred  vision 
of  her  passionate  soul.  Her  great  woman's 
assertion,  '  He  is  risen ! 9  is  the  basis  of  the 
faith  of  Humanity." 

Beauty  of  the  fabric,  fragility  of  the  foundation, 
necessity  of  the  consoling  vision,  fleeting  illusion 
of  all  things  save  the  infinitely  small  which  we 
measure  in  the  hollow  of  our  hand  !  And  who 
shall  say  which,  in  the  essential  is  truest :  Life 
which  is  a  dream,  or  the  dream  which  may  be 
Life  ?  All  here  below  is  but  a  sign  and  a  symbol, 
the  sun  in  the  heavens  no  less  than  the  phantom 


168       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


of  desire.  The  symbols  which  serve  to  give  a 
form  to  the  religious  sentiment  are  incomplete 
and  transitory  ;  but  a  great  truth  inhabits  them 
and  makes  of  the  least  of  them  the  temple  of  an 
hour. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

CHRISTIANITY  is  not  a  simple  faith  ;  it  is 
a  profound  theology,  a  tremendous  organ- 
isation. The  Son  of  Man  appeared,  loved  the 
world  and  died,  leaving  a  trail  of  light  behind 
him.  His  message  is  contained  in  the  dis- 
courses of  Matthew,  in  the  parables  of  Luke. 
But  a  pure  religion  is  too  ethereal  a  thing  to 
subsist  uncontaminate  in  the  dense  atmos- 
phere of  reality.  The  work  of  Jesus  was  taken 
up  and  completed  by  a  man  of  action.  And 
this  is  what  Renan  shows  us  in  his  volume  on 
St  Paul. 

His  portrait  of  the  Apostle  is  striking,  life-like, 

unexpected.    For  hitherto,  in  all  the  great  images 

which  he  loves  to  evoke  from  the  recesses  of  the 

past,  Renan  has  sought  some  secret  kinship  with 

his  own  soul.     Here  there  is  none !    St  Paul  is 

scarce  a  saint,  not  at  all  a  poet,  a  sage,  a  dreamer, 

or  a  man  of  science.    He  was  a  hero  of  the 

Active  Life — a  missionary  and  a  conqueror,  with 

169 


170       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


a  fierce,  tender,  proselytizing  soul,  not  averse  to 
combat,  often  susceptible,  sometimes  jealous, 
capable  of  rancour  and  aggression.  For  once 
Renan  has  got  outside  himself.  He  calls  up 
before  us  the  bizarre  little  Jew  with  his  halting 
speech,  his  incorrect  and  hurried  eloquence,  his 
bent  shoulders,  his  pale  face  with  the  large 
features,  his  piercing  eyes  under  their  shaggy 
eyebrows.  The  vision  is  so  vivid  that  we  scarce 
have  the  heart  to  cavil  at  the  insufficient  tradi- 
tion which  is  its  only  warrant  :  the  same  tradi- 
tion maintains  that  St  Paul  was  remarkable  for 
his  personal  beauty. 

St  Paul,  as  we  know,  was  a  Pharisee  and  a  man 
of  some  education.  The  fact  that  he  spoke  with 
fluency  a  Greek  dialect  was  all-important  in  the 
propagation  of  Christianity,  for  Greek  was  the 
chief  language  of  the  Mediterranean  ports,  and 
a  mere  Hebrew  missionary,  confined  to  his  own 
tongue,  would  have  been  of  scant  influence  with 
the  Gentiles.  Paul,  a  Jew  by  birth,  a  Roman 
citizen  by  hereditary  right,  a  Greek  by  language, 
was  no  less  cosmopolitan  than  the  world  he 
moved  in — the  brilliant,  variegated,  incoherent 
world  of  Asia  Minor :  Splendid  Antioch,  "  third 
city  of  the  globe,"  with  its  temples,  baths,  and 
aqueducts,  its  wide  streets  bordered  with  stately 
columns  and  statues  ;  immense  Ephesus  clamber- 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  171 


ing  from  the  marshes  up  the  sacred  hills,  with  the 
shrine  of  Diana  in  its  midst,  and  all  round  the 
clear  horizons  of  the  Asiatic  plain ;  Antioch, 
Ephesus,  Corinth,  vast  centres  of  wealth  and 
superstition,  cities  full  of  magicians  and  miners 
and  flute-players,  of  goldsmiths  and  courtezans,  of 
priests,  rhetoricians,  and  novelists :  such  were  the 
unlikely  cradles  of  the  New  Idea.  Renan  who, 
in  1864,  visited  the  whole  area  of  the  peregrin- 
ations of  St  Paul,  has  fixed  with  the  subtlest, 
most  vivid  art,  the  very  image  of  this  vanished 
world. 

"  Like  Socialism  now  -  a  -  days,  Christianity 
sprouted  on  what  we  call  the  corruption  of 
great  cities."  It  was  a  movement  of  the  hard- 
pressed,  intelligent,  unlettered  poor,  who  abounded 
in  the  meaner  suburbs  of  the  Mediterranean 
ports. 

There  the  wandering  Christian  workman  set  up 
his  tent,  there  he  sowed  the  good  seed,  and  then 
passed  on.  Like  a  travelling  journeyman  who 
leaves  behind  him  the  trace  of  his  opinion  in 
every  wayside  tavern  where  he  has  halted,  in 
every  village  where  he  has  made  friends,  Paul,  in 
especial,  wandered  from  place  to  place,  tramping 
over  hill  or  down  dale,  coasting  from  port  to  port, 
working  for  his  bread,  even  while  he  set  forth  how 
man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone.    At  Ephesus 


172       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


and  Corinth,  assisted  by  Aquila  and  Priscilla,  he 
set  up,  in  some  back  street,  a  small  shop  for  the 
sale  of  the  coarse  Cilician  canvas  which  it  was  his 
trade  to  weave.  In  every  town  where  he  halted 
he  gained  converts  to  the  Faith.  Christianity 
was  to  spring  in  all  her  glory  from  these  small 
clusters  of  fervid,  illiterate,  primitive  persons, 
grouped,  as  a  rule,  round  some  virtuous  well-to-do 
widow,  some  spiritually  -  minded  tradesman  of 
means.  The  Early  Churches  were  narrow  circles 
of  some  dozen  believers.  "  Probably  all  the  con- 
verts of  St  Paul  did  not  number  a  thousand  all 
told." 

Renan's  rare  knowledge  of  the  social  conditions 
of  antiquity  on  the  Mediterranean  shore  has  en- 
abled him  to  reconstruct  the  double  organization 
which  was  to  contain  Christianity,  even  as  the 
hive  and  the  wax  contain  the  honey.  The  outer 
framework,  as  we  may  say,  was  the  compact 
Orbis  of  the  Roman  Empire.  One  sole  adminis- 
tration governed  all  the  countries  visited  by 
the  Apostles.  Their  propaganda  would  have 
been  impossible  had  Asia,  Macedonia,  Malta, 
the  cities  of  Greece  and  Italy,  each  been  con- 
stituted in  separate  and  vivacious  nationalities, 
each  with  their  own  exclusive  tradition,  faith,  and 
speech.  But  the  Pax  Romana  enveloped  them 
all  in  one  monotony.    A  great  dull  well-being 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  173 


brooded  over  the  vast  Empire  :  the  tedium  of  a 
civilization  which  has  attained  its  goal  and  has 
nothing  left  to  desire. 

"  If  life  consisted  in  amusing  oneself  by 
order  of  the  Law,  in  eating  one's  ration  of  daily 
bread,  in  taking  the  regulation  pleasure  sadly 
under  the  eye  of  one's  chief,  then  the  Roman 
juris  consults  would  have  solved  the  problem  of 
human  government."  But  a  mortal  coldness 
breathed  from  this  dismal  prosperity :  Rome 
offered  nothing  to  love !  Deep  in  man's  heart 
is  the  instinct  of  choice.  The  phalanstery,  how- 
ever comfortable,  is  not  the  home,  nor  the  chance 
desk-fellow  the  selected  comrade.  He  longs 
for  the  little  coterie  of  chosen  spirits,  the  guild 
the  confraternity,  where  he  contributes,  of  his 
own  free  will,  to  the  welfare  of  his  mates  and 
his  own  security.  The  sense  of  fellowship  is 
an  instinct  which  must  be  allowed  for !  In 
the  lowest  circles  of  the  Roman  Empire  men 
met  together  in  secret  to  satisfy  this  sacred 
prompting.  The  Syrian,  Greek,  and  Jewish 
quarters  were  full  of  little  illicit  Collegia — Friendly 
Societies,  Mutual  Aid  Societies,  Burial  Societies 
especially — condemned  by  the  Government  as 
possible  hot-beds  of  disaffection,  but  in  reality 
peaceful  enough  in  their  humble  brotherhood. 
The   members  were  all  of  the   poorest  class : 


174       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


servants,  porters,  hucksters,  old-clo,  men,  tinder 
sellers  and  such  like.  Christianity  immediately 
illuminated  the  small  Collegia. 

And  what  was  the  ghetto  but  a  larger,  a 
more  complete  Collegium  ?  A  Collegium  whose 
life  and  centre  was  the  Synagogue  ?  No  gulf, 
no  apparent  schism,  as  yet  divided  Christianity 
from  the  Law  and  the  prophets.  The  first 
apostles  sought  their  quarters  in  the  ghetto. 
There  they  awaited  patiently  the  Sabbath  day, 
and  then  followed  the  crowding  Israelites  into 
the  square,  plain  structure  which  was  less  a 
church  than  a  school,  a  debating  society.  It 
was  the  hospitable  custom  of  Jewry  to  invite 
the  stranger  within  its  gates  to  greet  the  brethren 
with  some  discourse  of  edification.  Paul  and 
the  apostles  found  thus  their  opportunity.  In 
the  Synagogue  they  preached  the  Gospel.  In 
the  Synagogue  they  made  their  first  converts. 
In  the  Synagogue  they  aroused  their  earliest 
persecutors. 

For  no  people  are  (or  were)  so  well  instructed 
as  the  Jews  in  the  authentic  dogma  and  tradition 
of  their  own  religion.  Paul's  audacious  theories 
roused  a  dozen  eager  voices,  clamouring  to  con- 
fute the  heretic.  Hence  stonings,  flagellations, 
prison,  exile.  But  hence  also  the  instantaneous 
bruiting   abroad    of   Christian    doctrine.  The 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  175 


complicated  ritual  of  Judaism  was  perhaps  a 
safeguard,  it  was  certainly  a  barrier.  It  is 
impossible  to  imagine  the  world  accepting  a 
creed  overcharged  by  so  many  observances. 
Paul  proclaimed  :  "  The  Letter  kills,  the  Spirit 
maketh  alive."  By  declaring  of  no  account  the 
distinctions  between  the  clean  and  the  unclean, 
he  admitted  the  Gentiles  to  the  Faith,  but  he 
outraged  Judaism.  In  every  religion  there  are 
always  more  men  ready  to  avenge  a  violated 
ritual  than  to  accept  the  new  life  of  a  free 
spirit.  Judaism,  as  a  body,  was  lost  to 
Christianity.  But  in  exchange  it  gained  the 
world.  Instead  of  a  sect  of  the  ghetto,  it 
became  the  purest  worship  of  the  civilization  it 
renewed. 

Therein  was  the  merit  of  Paul.  By  his  pas- 
sionate affirmation  of  the  broad  freedom  of 
Christ  he  completed  and  secured  the  work  of 
Jesus.  The  history  of  his  struggle  at  tre- 
mendous odds  ;  the  sunny,  breezy,  joyous 
narration  of  his  divine  Odyssey  ;  the  picture 
of  the  social  conditions  under  which  he 
laboured,  is  the  subject  of  Renan's  two  volumes, 
The  Apostlesy  and  St  Paul.  Seldom  has  the 
master  shown  a  science  more  solid,  a  profounder 
sense  of  the  secret  roots  of  things,  a  more  vivid 
and   brilliant  vocation  of  their   living  image, 


176       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


than  in  this  volume  which,  dealing  with  docu- 
ments and  facts  beyond  dispute,  contains  nothing 
to  grieve  the  liberal  Christian,  much  to  instruct 
the  student,  and,  more  to  rejoice  the  lover  of 
literature. 


CHAPTER  IV 


POLITICS 

NOT  for  a  moment  was  Renan's  weighty 
mind  thrown  out  of  gear  by  the  prodigious 
success  of  the  Life  of  fesus.  He  was  aware  that 
an  author's  popularity  is  almost  always  the  result 
of  a  misunderstanding.  He  liked  being  liked,  no 
doubt,  as  much  as  St  Augustine  "  loved  to  love." 
Popularity  was  a  pleasant  episode.  He  would 
not  let  it  become  an  aim. 

Had  he  continued  the  "Origins  of  Christianity" 
in  a  crescendo  of  anti-clericalism,  Renan  would 
have  become  the  idol  of  the  market-place.  He 
would  have  been  to  1870  what  Lamartine  had 
been  to  1848:  the  vates,  the  philosopher,  the 
chosen  guide.  But  the  unity  and  the  dignity 
of  Renan's  life  sprang  from  his  sense  of  belonging 
to  a  superior  order  vowed  to  superior  duties :  he 
was  the  priest  of  Truth.  Instead  of  contesting  a 
Parisian  circonscription,  he  went  to  Asia  Minor 
with  his  wife  and  studied  on  the  spot,  as  minutely 
as  he  had  studied  the  civilization  of  Palestine  and 
Syria,  the  local  conditions  into  which  were  born 

M  177 


178       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


the  Christian  churches.  Then  he  came  home  and 
continued  the  Origins  of  Christianity  in  a  mood 
of  absolute  abstraction  from  the  passions  of  the 
hour. 

The  Apostles  appeared  in  1866,  St  Paul  in 
1869.  Renan  looked  up  from  his  task  at  the 
world  about  him,  and  saw  that  the  soul  of  France 
was  disquieted  within  her.  At  heart  he  was  still 
a  priest,  a  man  set  apart,  elect,  a  member  of  a 
moral  aristocracy, — and  therefore  responsible  for 
the  errors  of  his  inferiors.  To-day,  as  in  1843, 
he  thought : — 

"  A  private  life  would  be  my  happiness  ;  but 
such  a  life  appears  to  me  tainted  by  selfishness. 
I  ought  to  be  a  priest ;  for  the  priest  is  the  de- 
positary both  of  wisdom  and  good  counsel  ;  the 
man  of  study,  the  man  of  meditation,  and  yet  a 
very  brother  to  his  brethren."  1 

Renan,  so  far  at  least,  was  no  sceptic,  no  mere 
dilettante  indifferent  to  mankind.  He  had  the 
tenderest  sense  of  fraternity,  the  most  absolute 
sense  of  the  efficacy  of  the  Ideal  ;  there  was 
balm  in  Gilead  still !  If  he  believed  it  impossible, 
and  perhaps  unnecessary,  to  admit  the  multitude 
into  the  arcana  of  that  temple  wherein  he  was  a 
servant,  he  accepted  none  the  less,  and  indeed 
all  the  more,  the  claim  which  the  ignorance 

Lettres  Intimes,  p.  118. 


POLITICS 


179 


of  the  laity  laid  upon  him  in  their  hours  of 
perplexity  and  error.  It  is  a  mistake  to  say, 
as  I  have  heard  it  said,  that  Renan  was  an 
ambitious  man — that  he  desired  to  govern  his 
inferiors,  and  to  impose  the  triumph  of  his  own 
ideas.  But  it  is  less  of  a  mistake,  I  maintain, 
than  to  imagine  him,  as  the  main  public  of 
France  imagines  him,  an  idle  dreamer  in  his 
ivory  tower.  He  was,  in  fact,  a  conscientious 
leader  of  humanity,  sometimes  misguided,  ever 
willing  to  seek  a  better  way. 

France  in  1869  had  reached  a  high  degree  of 
material  prosperity.  Napoleon  III.  had  taught 
the  French  how  rich  they  were.  But  the  seeing 
eye  could  read  the  threat  of  disaster  in  the  shifty 
brilliance  of  the  hour.  All  the  roots  of  France 
were  exhausted  in  the  production  of  one  beauti- 
ful, sterile  orchid,  —  Paris.  The  provinces  were 
sapped,  drained,  lifeless  ;  neither  country  gentry, 
nor  county  boards,  nor  local  interests,  supplied 
the  provincial  with  an  existence  of  his  own.  As 
France  only  bloomed  in  Paris,  so  Paris  flowered 
in  the  Court :  a  fast,  frivolous,  superficial,  spend- 
thrift Court  of  tinsel  soldiers,  of  reckless  beauties, 
of  brilliant  authors  :  a  world  of  little  theatres  and 
universal  exhibitions,  of  Baron  Haussmanns  and 
Cora  Pearls.  It  was  clearly  time  that  the  order 
of  things  should  change. 


i8o       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


The  General  Election  came  round  in  May 
1869.  It  was  then  that  the  Liberal  Opposition 
asked  Renan  to  stand  for  Meaux.  At  some 
sacrifice  of  time  and  fortune  he  consented.  The 
gods  must  have  smiled  to  see  Ernest  Renan 
go  a-canvassing  among  the  wealthy  corn-growers, 
the  rich  butter-merchants  and  cheese-mongers 
of  the  plains  of  Brie.  Brie,  by  nature  of  its 
proximity  to  Paris,  is  Radical,  anti-clerical,  and 
prosperous  :  it  sells  its  wares  to  the  Capital,  and 
takes,  in  exchange,  some  tint  of  Parisian  ideas  : 
but  it  is  a  Radicalism  fat  with  grass  and  grain, 
fed  to  bursting  with  rich  milk  and  the  flesh  of 
kine :  the  Radicalism  of  the  peasant  landlord : 
the  most  illiberal  opinion  of  any  party. 

The  vast  plains  were  one  shimmering  ocean  of 
pale  green,  with  last  year's  great  ricks  stranded 
here  and  there,  like  ships,  among  the  unbounded 
corn,  when  Ernest  Renan  traversed  them  in  the 
spring  of  '69.  What  can  he  have  said  to  the 
influential  voters  who  inhabit  these  solid  farms  ? 
How  they  must  have  astonished  each  other,  he 
and  they  ?  I  can  imagine  a  conversation  some- 
thing after  this  fashion  : — 

Farmer  of  Brie. — "Good  morning,  Mister.  You 
support  the  Liberal  programme  ?  " 

M.  Renan. — "  Yes,  on  the  whole.  .  .  .  We 
can   indeed  imagine  a  superior  social  order  in 


POLITICS 


181 


which  the  individual  would  be  remorselessly — 
perhaps,  indeed,  willingly — sacrificed  in  order  to 
promote,  in  a  few,  the  acquisition  of  some  yet 
undreamed-of  good.  But  France  appears  irre- 
vocably devoted  to  Liberty,  to  the  happiness  of 
the  mass,  to  a  small,  prosperous,  somewhat  vulgar, 
affluence." 

F.  ofB. — "  Well,  well !  And  you  will  vote  for 
the  extension  of  the  Board  Schools  ?  " 

M.  Renan. — "  Certainly  !  If  Science  be  the 
chief  good,  what  right  have  we  to  debar  our 
brother  from  it  ?  And  yet,  I  own,  I  deplore 
the  abolition  of  the  unlettered  class,  charming  in 
its  rural  simplicity,  shrewd  with  a  mother-wit  of 
its  own,  the  faithful  depositary  of  the  ideas  and 
fancies  of  our  remotest  forefathers.  The  peasant, 
the  priest,  and  the  noble  are  the  only  loveable 
classes !  The  Board  Schools  will  replace  the 
peasant  by  a  pretentious,  ill-bred,  self-made  rustic, 
infinitely  more  dangerous  to  Science,  and  probably 
hopelessly  unfitted  for  the  sphere  into  which  he  is 
born.  The  School  Board  will  be  the  ruin  of  a 
superior  ideal.  But  let  Justice  be  accomplished  ! 
Yes,  yes,  my  friend,  I  shall  vote  for  the  School 
Board." 

F.  of  B. — (Does  the  man  think  me  an  ass  ?) 
"  And  the  taxes  ?  At  least,  you  are  firm  for 
cutting  down  the  taxes  ?  " 


1 82       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


M.  Renan. — "  In  part.  It  is  certain  that,  in  the 
whole  cause  of  history,  nothing  has  ever  rendered 
a  government  so  unpopular  as  excessive  taxation. 
And  yet !  a  tax,  rightly  regarded,  is  a  form 
of  disinterestedness,  a  way  of  participating  in 
the  real  life  of  the  world.  Our  poor  selfish  aims 
— all  the  criss-cross  of  rival  activities  which  make 
up  the  struggle  for  our  daily  bread, — are  as  nought 
in  the  sight  of  the  Eternal !  Our  personal  ambi- 
tions, our  thousand  little  strifes,  successes,  and 
reverses  are  all,  as  we  may  say,  consumed  in 
the  wear  and  tear  of  the  universe  :  every  day 
supplies  the  fuel  of  every  day.  But  the  little 
fund  of  reserve  force  which  makes  the  world 
go  round  is  the  devotion  which  we  willingly 
give  to  an  end  outside  ourselves,  distilled,  drop 
by  drop,  from  millions  of  selfish  lives.  Nothing 
is  so  vain,  so  imbecile,  as  selfishness  :  beware  of 
selfishness !  Sometimes,  I  confess,  I  see  the 
future  of  earth  as  a  planet  of  idiots,  each  basking 
in  his  own  particular  ray,  indifferent  to  all  outside 
his  well-sunned  limbs.  Selfishness  is  the  curse 
of  great  material  prosperity.  And  it  may  be 
that,  in  this  vast  sunlit  sheet  of  springing  corn 
before  us,  in  all  this  panorama  of  grain  and  kine, 
of  earth  and  river,  the  one  thing  which  really 
exists  is  the  tax  which  each  yields  of  its  increase 
for  the  general  weal  of  the  nation." 


POLITICS 


183 


F.  of  B. — "  Dang  it,  the  man's  gone  daft ! 
Good  morning,  Mister  !  " 

On  one  point,  at  least,  M.  Renan  and  his  con- 
stituency were  as  one.  All  his  electioneering 
bills  bore  in  flaming  letters — "  No  War.  No 
Revolution.  A  War  would  be  as  disastrous  as 
a  Revolution."  The  Prussians  may  still  have 
read  them  on  the  village  walls  round  Meaux. 
And  on  this  theme  M.  Renan  was  never  too 
eloquent  to  please  his  hearers.  He  had  then,  as 
always,  the  most  brilliant  success  as  a  speaker. 
His  wit,  his  astonishing  naturalness,  the  originality 
and  the  fundamental  good  sense  of  his  paradoxes, 
the  charm  of  his  manner,  his  air  of  enjoying  the 
ideas  with  which  the  occasion  inspired  him,  made 
him  irresistible  as  an  orator.  And,  at  bottom,  his 
hearers  and  he  were  of  a  like  opinion — at  least  as 
to  the  prospect  of  war.  Among  the  peasants  of 
Brie  there  reigned,  in  1869,  the  most  complete 
indifference  to  military  glory.  They  had  a 
certain  honest  respect  for  freedom,  but  at  bottom 
all  that  they  asked  was  that  the  Prefet  should 
meddle  as  little  as  possible  in  their  affairs, 
that  the  taxes  should  be  diminished,  that  the 
term  of  military  service — which  took  so  many 
strong  young  arms  from  the  harvest — should  be 
shortened  as  much  as  possible.  All  that  they 
asked  was  to  be  left  free  to  make  their  own  for- 


1 84       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


tunes  out  of  their  own  fields  in  their  own  way. 
M.  Renan  looked  in  some  wonder  at  these  persons 
incapable  of  a  sacrifice,  incapable  of  a  general 
idea.  He  found  the  farmer  of  Brie  un  etre  borne. 
He  wondered  at  this  thriving  rustic,  "  content  in  his 
gross  and  trivial  comfort  without  a  thought  in  his 
head."  M.  Jules  Simon  used  to  say  that,  when  asked 
if  he  would  vote  with  his  party,  M.  Renan  was  wont 
to  muse,  and  to  reply,  at  last :— Sometimes  !  But 
though  he  must  have  appeared  an  extraordinary 
politician,  Renan 's  reputation  was  immense ; 
probably  his  eccentricities  were  taken  as  the 
hall  mark  of  his  genius.  The  Minister  of  the 
Interior  took  great  pains  over  this  affair,  and  it 
was  not  without  a  struggle  that  Ernest  Renan 
was  defeated  for  the  constituency  of  Meaux. 

The  tendency  of  the  elections  as  a  whole  was 
distinctly  Liberal.  The  Empire  itself  at  last,  and 
especially  the  Emperor,  had  absorbed  a  great  deal 
of  the  Liberal  theory,  and  gave  out  as  much 
liberty,  or  thereabouts,  as  France  at  that  moment 
could  assimilate  without  excess.  L Empire  Liberal 
sought  to  repair  its  wrongs  towards  Ernest 
Renan:  already  in  the  spring  of  1870,  there 
was  some  talk  of  reinstating  him  in  his  Chair  of 
Hebrew  at  the  College  of  France.  True,  the 
affair  was  only  completed  under  the  Ministry 
of  Jules  Simon,  on  the  17th  November,  after 


POLITICS 


the  fall  of  the  Empire  ;  but  the  first  steps 
towards  Renan's  rehabilitation  were  taken  six 
months  before  that  catastrophe.  And,  in  fact, 
Renan  had  accepted  the  Liberal  Empire.  It  was 
part  of  his  theory  that  progress  comes  not  by 
leaps  and  bounds,  but  little  by  little :  that  out 
of  chaos  comes  misrule,  and  out  of  misrule 
gradually  a  better  order.  He  would  have 
accepted  the  chair  of  Quatremere  as  a  Liberal 
victory,  infinitely  more  important  than  the  defeat 
of  Meaux. 

Much  in  the  spirit  of  a  Merovingian  Bishop, — 
who,  unable  to  chase  the  barbarians  from  Gaul, 
should  set  himself  to  civilize  them, — Renan  not 
uncheerfully  assumed  the  moral  education  of  the 
Empire.  He  had  no  doubt  of  its  stability ;  he 
had  touched  as  it  were  with  his  hands  the  wealth, 
the  solidity,  the  love  of  peace,  of  rural  France. 
The  Government  was  certainly  bad ;  but  a 
system  which  encouraged  the  endowment  of 
research  could  surely  not  be  wholly  corrupt. 
On  the  8th  of  May  1870,  seven  and  a  half 
millions  of  Frenchmen  declared  themselves 
satisfied  with  LEmpire  Liberal  Brilliant  and 
hollow  beyond  example,  France  appeared  destined 
to  show  that  a  nation  can  flourish  merely  by  the 
excessive  animation  of  its  surface,  as  if  a  man, 
having  coughed  up  all  his  lungs,  should  live  on 


1 86       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


by  the  extraordinary  breathing  power  of  his 
skin. 

Such  health  is  deceptive.  The  Emperor  him- 
self was  not  deceived.  The  Empress  said  :  unless 
we  have  a  war,  my  son  will  not  come  to  the 
throne.  By  a  second  act  of  high  treason,  by  a 
second  Coup  d'Etat,  more  culpable  and  more 
disastrous  even  than  the  first,  on  the  19th  July 
1 870,  the  Emperor  declared  war  against  Germany. 
Renan  was  at  Tromsoe,  in  the  far  North  of  Nor- 
way, in  company  with  the  Prince  J6rome-Napol6on, 
as  innocent  of  apprehension  as  himself.  "  What 
a  crime,  what  a  fit  of  stark,  staring  madness ! "  he 
wrote  to  Sir  Mountstuart  Grant  Duff.1  "  I  had 
thought  the  danger  of  war  waived  for  years,  per- 
haps for  ever.  .  .  .  The  greatest  heartache  of  my 
life  followed  the  opening  of  that  fatal  telegram." 

1  Sir  M.  G.  Duff,  Ernest  Renan,  p.  81. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  WAR  RENAN  AS  PROPHET 

T3  ENAN  hastened  home  and  joined  his  family 
at  the  small  house  near  S&vres,  where  he 
was  accustomed  to  spend  the  summer.  From 
the  first  he  knew  what  to  expect.  A  formidable 
discipline,  an  organised  force  at  the  service  of  a 
great  idea,  had  come  into  contact  with  an  in- 
coherent mass  of  martial  vanity  and  irresponsible 
impulse.  Electrified  by  the  mere  hallucination 
of  Napoleon's  ghost,  France  was  doomed  to 
defeat ;  and,  in  his  prophetic  vision,  Renan  wept 
her  defeat  in  tears  of  blood,  for  she  suffered  it 
at  the  hands  of  his  ideal. 

All  his  life  he  had  dreamed  of  uniting 
France  and  Germany.  He  saw  them  lead 
the  United  States  of  Europe  in  the  van  of 
civilization — the  one  passionately  alive  to  all 
that  is  generous,  liberal,  or  lovely  ;  the  other 
proud  in  her  hereditary  strength  of  science  and 
authority.  Together  they  might  head  the  world  ; 
and  now  .  .  .  ! 

187 


1 88       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


Behold,  the  nation  to  which  Renan  owed  all 
that  was  best  in  him — the  nation  of  Goethe, 
Herder,  Kant — revealed  itself  as  a  rout  of 
drunken  troopers  setting  fire  to  Bazeilles  !  The 
brutal  Bavarian,  the  plundering  Swab,  the 
blustering  Prussian,  these  were  the  teachers  whom 
he  had  ever  held  up  as  patterns  of  morality  and 
culture  !  No  man  in  France,  we  may  fairly  say, 
suffered  more  in  that  hour  than  Ernest  Renan  ; 
for  the  Franco-German  war  was  to  him  as  a 
civil  war,  and  he  saw  his  two  countries  closed  in 
a  murderous  struggle. 

Admirable  in  his  freedom  from  party  passion, 
Renan  never  let  go  his  hold  on  the  general 
relation  of  things.  After  Bazeilles,  after  Sedan,  in 
the  midst  of  his  cruel  experience  of  the  hard  and 
arbitrary  spirit  of  Prussia,  Renan  still  saw  un- 
obscured  the  ideal  Germany  which  had  formed 
his  mind.  His  country  in  flames,  the  Prussians 
in  sight  of  Paris,  his  own  little  house  at  S&vres 
pillaged  by  his  divinities,  left  him  still  convinced. 
Behind  this  evident  mass  of  drill-sergeants, 
quarter-masters,  heroes,  and  scoundrels — Goths 
alike — there  existed  none  the  less  a  superior 
order,  an  invisible  senate  of  philosophers,  men 
of  science,  scholars,  jurists  (men  of  action  also), 
working  together  in  the  service  of  humanity. 
These  were  really  Germany ;  and  Germany  being 


THE  WAR— RENAN  AS  PROPHET  189 


the  most  adequate  expression  of  reason,  would 
listen  to  reason. 

While  the  Prussians  were  taking  up  their 
positions  at  Versailles  and  St  Cloud,  Renan  sat 
down  and  wrote  to  David  Strauss  an  open  letter 
denouncing  the  war  as  a  crime  against  civilization, 
pleading  against  the  annexation  of  Alsace-Lor- 
raine as  a  blunder  in  history,  for  Germany  has 
need  of  France  as  an  ally  against  the  growing 
strength  of  Russia.  The  letter  is  eloquent  and 
noble.  All  through  it  echoes  that  love  of  Europe 
which  was  Renan's  true  patriotism,  that  dis- 
interested devotion  to  the  future  of  humanity 
which  is  his  peculiar  glory.  But,  alas !  when 
did  prophet  arrest  the  course  of  battle  ?  Strauss 
chuckled  in  his  beard,  translated  his  ingenuous 
correspondent's  pamphlet,  and  sold  it  for  the 
profit  of  the  Prussian  ambulances ;  whilst,  on 
the  horizon,  Germany  wrote  her  answer  in  flames 
by  the  arson  of  St  Cloud. 

If  Renan's  attitude  was  a  failure  abroad,  at 
home  it  was  a  scandal.  Even  his  nearest  friends 
deplored  the  prophet's  madness.  An  exasperated 
patriotism  contracted  the  nerves  of  France.  It 
was  not  precisely  the  moment  to  speak  of  the 
chosen  few,  of  that  elite  of  reasonable  humanity 
the  wide  world  over — "  Neither  Greek  nor  Bar- 
barian, neither  German  or  Latin  " — who  from  an 


190       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


empyrean  raised  above  the  struggles  of  race 
and  country,  should  remain  undivided  in  their 
Olympian  goodwill,1  and  direct  the  affairs  of 
mankind.  A  line  in  Goncourt's  Journal,  —  re- 
ported with  the  inevitable  inexactitude  resulting 
from  the  incapacity  of  a  Goncourt  to  comprehend 
a  Renan,  yet  undeniably  precious  —  shows  us 
the  completeness  of  the  misunderstanding  be- 
tween the  idealist  philosopher  and  a  defeated 
nation  : — 

"  Berthelot  continued  his  distressing  revelations. 
When  he  had  done,  I  exclaimed,  6  All  is  over ! 
There  is  nothing  left  save  to  rear  a  generation 
to  avenge  us  ! '  —  '  No  !  no  !  '  cried  Renan, 
starting  up,  with  his  face  aflame.  '  No  ven- 
geance !  Perish  France,  rather !  Perish  the 
idea  of  country  !  Higher  still  is  the  Kingdom 
of  Duty  and  Reason  ! ' — '  No  !  no  ! 9  yelled  the 
whole  table,  '  there  is  nothing  above  one's  country 
— nothing ! '  By  this  time  Renan  had  left  his 
chair  and  was  walking  round  and  round  the 
table  with  his  shambling  gait,  waving  his  little 
arms  in  the  air,  and  quoting  aloud  fragments 
of  Holy  Scripture,  as  he  muttered,  '  That's  the 
essential ! "  2 

Doubtless  Isaiah  appeared  as  odious,  and  no  less 

1  Lettre  a  David  Strauss,  Ref.  Intellectuelle  et  Morale. 

2  E.  de  Goncourt,  Journal,  2nd  serie,  1st  volume,  p.  28. 


THE  WAR— REN  AN  AS  PROPHET  191 


grotesque,  in  the  eyes  of  the  Court  of  Jerusalem 
on  more  than  one  occasion.1  Was  not  the 
reproach  of  old  cast  up  against  the  prophets 
that  they,  sons  of  Israel,  were  friends  of  the 
Assyrian  ? 

What  is  a  prophet  but  a  popular  spokesman 
animated  by  the  idea  of  God  ;  inspired  by  the 
Spirit  to  protest  against  the  dulness,  the  mean- 
ness, the  cruelty  or  the  iniquity  of  the  times? 
Such,  at  least,  and  not  mere  visionaries  and 
soothsayers,  were  the  seers  of  Israel.  Such,  on 
his  measure  and  degree,  was  Ernest  Renan 
during  the  one  difficult  and  heartbreaking  year 
of  the  war.  Exposed  to  the  long  agony  of  the 
siege,  unpopular,  without  credit  in  the  eyes  of 
the  violent  factions  which  divided  the  country, 
Renan  continued  to  preach  his  message,  and  to 
show  the  sacred  hope  of  a  future  redeemed  by 
the  humiliations  of  the  present.  Repulsed  by 
Germany,  he  sought  to  raise  up  France,  to  bind 
her  sores,  and  renew  a  right  spirit  within  her. 
Like  his  great  forerunners,  he  called  for  a  king 
in  Israel ;  a  king  to  impose  on  his  people  a  new 
discipline  and  a  new  ideal,  to  build  their  founda- 
tions on  wisdom,  earnestness,  submission,  justice. 
"  Democracy  has  no  discipline,  and  no  moral 
ideal  to  impose.     Children,  left  to  their  own 

1  For  instance,  Isaiah  viii. 


192       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 

devices,  will  not  educate  each  other." 1  It  may 
be  that  the  only  fruitful  discipline  comes  from 
within,  is  not  forced  upon  us  from  without,  but 
so  thought  no  longer  the  ex-Democrat  of  1848. 
Germany  still  haunted  him.  He  would  fain  have 
reconstituted  France  in  the  image  of  her  con- 
queror, as  a  mighty  kingdom,  governed  by  a 
strong  provincial  aristocracy,  kept  in  respect  by 
the  fear  of  the  throne.  "  The  victory  of  Germany 
was  the  victory  of  the  man  who  is  full  of  rever- 
ence, careful,  attentive,  methodical,  over  slapdash 
and  hap-hazard.  ...  It  is  the  victory  of  Science 
and  Reason.  But  it  is  also  the  victory  of  the 
feudal  idea,  the  victory  of  the  historic  right  of 
kings." 

Such  was  not  the  mind  of  the  French.  There 
are  two  great  tendencies  in  modern  politics. 
The  first,  ever  more  and  more  predominant,  is 
jealous  above  all  of  the  greatest  happiness  of 
the  greatest  number,  preoccupied  by  the  rights 
of  individuals  and  their  liberty ;  and  such,  for 
a  hundred  years,  has  been  the  trend  of  Liberal 
France.  The  second  establishes  a  priori  a 
providential  order,  sacrifices  hecatombs  of  indi- 
viduals to  the  attainment  of  certain  abstract  aims, 
and  is  content  if  the  sweat  of  a  multitude  permit 
the  nobler  lives  of  a  chosen  few,  and  so  increase, 

1  R4forme%  &c,  p.  66- 


THE  WAR— RENAN  AS  PROPHET  193 


little  by  little,  the  intellectual  capital  of  the 
race.  Which  of  these  twain  is  the  true  end  of 
humanity?  We  may  not  know.  The  obscure 
soul  of  the  universe  finds,  perchance,  its  expres- 
sion in  either. 

At  least  it  is  certain  that,  on  the  morrow  of 
the  war,  Renan  was  convinced  of  the  efficacy  of 
the  aristocratic  ideal.  Full  of  fervour,  he  pre- 
sented himself  at  the  elections  of  1871.  He  was 
again  rejected.  He  took  his  defeat  to  heart ;  the 
sense  of  his  uselessness  in  the  hour  of  need 
appears  to  have  overwhelmed  him.  His  desperate 
struggle  with  the  impossible  altered  the  natural 
gentleness  of  his  nature.  Condemned  to  look  on, 
impotent,  he  beheld  the  most  cruel  of  his  fears 
come  true.  The  Prussians  were  still  round  Paris 
when,  on  the  18th  March,  '71,  the  capital,  de- 
lirious with  famine  fever,  broke  out  into  the 
Commune.  The  barricades  were  up  in  the 
streets ;  blood  ran  in  rivers ;  all  the  old  mad 
dreams  and  hopes  and  hallucinations  of  '48,  all 
the  atrocity  of  excessive  reprisals,  all  the  endless 
sequel  of  hate  and  wrong,  rose,  like  bloody  froth, 
to  the  surface  of  the  troubled  nation.  Renan's 
heart  broke  then,  I  think.  The  lees  of  a  harsh 
disgust  for  life  shrivelled  the  lips  that  hitherto 
had  only  spoken  golden  words.  Like  Zachary, 
he  abandoned  Juda  and  Israel  ;  both  had  betrayed 

N 


194       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


him.  He  shook  the  dust  of  the  city  from  his 
feet ;  he  broke  in  twain  his  shepherd's  staff ;  and 
the  name  of  the  staff  was  Fraternity. 

Beside  the  Thing  that  Is,  beside  the  real  fact — 
there  exists  the  ideal  fact,  which  ought  to  have 
taken  place,  but  did  not — 

"  Look  in  my  face — my  name  is  Might-have-been." 

Were  I  writing  not  a  biography,  but  a  study  in 
absolute  psychology — were  I  writing  for  a  public 
which  could  not  match  an  ideal  truth  with  its 
obvious  irrefutable  counterpart — it  is  here,  I  con- 
fess, that  I  might  place  the  end  of  Ernest  Renan. 
Something  died  in  him  then  ;  the  Breton,  I  think. 
It  is  sure  that  in  his  despair  he  would  fain  have 
died  altogether,  knowing  that  it  is  sometimes  well 
that  one  man  should  perish  to  redeem  the  people. 
"If  ever  I  have  wished  to  be  a  Senator,  it  was 
chiefly  because  I  saw  there  a  fair  occasion  for  a 
violent  death."  Let  us  then  imagine  him,  like 
his  own  Antistius,  a  victim  to  the  strife  of  the 
ideal  with  base  reality.  In  some  Parisian  street, 
full  of  March  sunshine,  riddled  with  shot  and 
shell,  behold  him  mounted  on  the  great  barricade 
of  beams  and  flagstones.  With  the  light  of  the 
Sacred  Mount  on  his  face,  he  delivers  undismayed 
the  message  of  a  free  spirit.     But  hark,  a  brief 


THE  WAR— RENAN  AS  PROPHET  195 


explosion,  a  burst  of  flame  and  smoke !  Struck 
at  once  in  heart  and  head,  slain  by  the  splinter  of 
a  Prussian  obus,  and  by  a  stone  thrown  by  the 
people  of  Paris,  the  prophet  falls.  So  might 
have  ended  Ernest  Renan. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  £LITE 

T3UT  Renan  did  not  die.  He  merely  took 
the  train  for  Versailles,  a  disenchanted 
emigre  of  the  Commune.  It  was  the  end  of 
April.  The  stately  Park  of  Le  Notre  was  at  its 
rarest, — a  greenness  in  desolation,  a  hope  in 
abandonment,  such  as  perchance  the  world  con- 
tains not  elsewhere.  All  through  the  month 
of  May,  M.  Renan  wandered  to  and  fro  under 
the  tender  leaves  of  the  stately  alleys,  beside  the 
straight  waters  full  of  flowering  weeds,  where  the 
gummy  scent  of  the  poplar  is  fresh  on  the  air. 
There  are  few  lonelier  spots  than  may  be  dis- 
covered in  that  forsaken  pleasure  ground  :  Renan 
made  it  his  habitual  phrontisterion.  Deprived  of 
his  books,  separated  from  his  work,  he  mused 
on  the  melancholy  of  human  destiny.  The  old 
thoughts  that,  thirty  years  ago,  he  had  revolved 
in  endless  meditations  under  the  limes  of  Issy, 
visited  him  again.    Fragments  of  Herder  and 

Hegel  and  Malebranche  rose  to  his  lips.  Twas 

196 


THE  &LITE 


197 


an  endless  conversation  between  the  different 
lobes  of  his  brain.  An  echo  of  this  long  lonely 
soliloquy  has  been  preserved  to  us  in  the  Philoso- 
phic Dialogues. 

We  appreciate  the  violence  of  a  storm  by  the 
ravage  which  it  leaves  behind  it.  Compare  this 
book  with  St  Paul  or  The  Apostles \  and  you  have 
the  measure  of  Renan's  profound  and  embittered 
disappointment  - —  a  disappointment  which  em- 
braced not  his  own  country  only  but  his  enemy's, 
and  the  two  main  conceptions  of  human  society ; 
since  the  peaceful  democracy  of  France  appeared 
a  Commune  unchained,  shooting  its  hostages ; 
while  the  military  aristocracy  of  Germany  was 
revealed  as  a  "  handful  of  aristocrats,  urging  the 
placable  populations  to  the  slaughter."  Neither 
these  savage  iconoclasts,  nor  those  arrogant 
uhlans  full  of  oaths,  were  fit  to  be  the  instru- 
ments of  the  Ideal.  What  was  the  future  of 
society?  How  should  the  kingdom  of  God  be 
brought  to  pass  ? 

Like  Boethius,  composing  in  prison  his  Con- 
solations of  Philosophy,  amid  the  ruins  of  his 
world ;  like  Condorcet,  writing  his  Progress  of 
the  Human  Mind,  in  hiding  during  the  Reign 
of  Terror ;  Renan,  from  his  avenue  of  Versailles, 
with  Paris  flaming  on  the  horizon,  sent  forth 
his  soul  to  seek  a  solution   of  this  apparent 


198       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


anarchy  of  things.  His  Philosophic  Dialogues 
show  a  change  of  attitude  rather  than  a  change 
of  mind — few  of  us  change  much  at  bottom  after 
five-and-twenty.    His  old  ideas  still  guide  him  : — 

1.  God  does  not  proceed  by  special  provi- 
dences. 

2.  The  universe  fulfils,  unconscious,  a  divine 
destiny  with  which,  from  the  beginning,  it  was 
big. 

3.  One  day,  God,  as  yet  inarticulate,  shall  come 
into  conscious  being. 

4.  Every  disinterested  effort  makes  for  the 
little  residue  of  excellence  which,  for  ever  ac- 
cumulating, goes  to  shape  the  Divine  Idea. 

To  these  leading  themes  he  adds  two  pre- 
dominant motifs^  not  new  in  his  philosophy,  but 
developed  out  of  all  recognition.    They  are  : — 

5.  The  theory  of  the  elect ;  and 

6.  The  suggestion  of  Conditional  Immortality  ; 
both  of  them,  as  a  fact,  an  ingenious  application 
of  the  Evolutionist  Theory :  the  Survival  of 
the  Fittest. 

In  sight  of  the  magnificent  arson  of  Paris, 
Renan  assumed  it  improbable  that  the  Kingdom 
of  God  would  arrive  by  Democracy.  In  a 
mood  of  bitter  reaction  he  reiterates  with  em- 
phasis a  conviction  which  long  had  lain  at  the 
back  of  his  mind,  namely,  that  the  masses  do 


THE  ELITE 


not  count,  are  a  mere  bulk  of  raw  material  out 
of  which,  drop  by  drop,  the  essence  is  extracted 
— the  rare  essence,  the  one  thing  needful,  which, 
whether  as  Truth,  Beauty,  Self-sacrifice,  or  Genius, 
goes  to  make  the  Ideal.  Wherefore,  then,  cum- 
ber ourselves  with  the  education  of  the  masses  ? 
Let  them  think  as  they  please — if  they  think. 
What  matter  the  opinions  of  millions  of  fools? 
Why  trouble  with  difficult  speculations  the  un- 
developed brains  which  were  not  made  to  hold 
them  ?  Is  not  the  average  man  ephemeral  as  the 
May  fly,  here  to-day,  gone  to-morrow  without  a 
trace,  wholly  eliminated  from  the  Universe? 
Such  as  these  are  not  born  to  know,  are  not  born 
to  have  power,  are  not  born  to  govern.  But, 
alas,  they  are  born  to  transgress,  to  revolt,  born 
to  immolate  the  Higher  to  the  Lower,  and 
continually  to  crucify  their  Redeemer.  If  not 
for  their  own  sake,  then  for  ours,  and  for  the 
dim-descried  and  distant  goal  of  things,  let  us 
put  the  masses  within  harness  and  drive  them 
whither  we  will,  well  within  bounds,  kept  under  a 
yoke  of  gold  and  iron  ! 

The  peculiar  pride  of  the  priest  rings  in  these 
theories,  and  still  more  in  what  follows,  sinister 
with  odd  reminiscences  of  Inquisition  racks  and 
stakes.  In  an  extraordinary  symbol  Renan 
imagines  that  the  advance  of  Chemistry  and 


200       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


the  arts  of  war  may  one  day  place  in  the 
hands  of  a  superior  order  means,  hitherto  un- 
imagined,  of  mastering  the  many.  Plato  also 
had  dreamed  of  the  Tyrant  -  Sage,  the  man 
who  should  unite  political  with  philosophic 
authority. 

"  Unless  those  who  govern  States  be  serious 
philosophers  the  perfect  State  will  never  see  the 
light,"  runs  the  theme  of  the  Republic.  "  Author- 
ity must  be  confided  to  those  who  think  little  of 
authority,  to  men  of  science  and  philosophers 
pursuing  a  more  than  mortal  aim."  And  the 
Athenian  had  already  propounded  a  system  of 
social  selection  by  which  the  most  gifted,  most 
temperate,  strongest  and  wisest  of  a  nation  should 
be  raised  from  the  body  of  the  people  into  a 
superior  caste,  entrusted  with  supreme  power. 
...  The  outburst  of  anarchy,  of  simple  instincts, 
which  defaced  the  end  of  the  Franco-Prussian 
war,  revealed  how  little  power  over  a  people 
has  the  small  class  of  free,  enlightened  spirits. 
Renan  looked  on  in  a  melancholy  too  deep  for 
tears  ;  and  he  too  murmured — "  Instinct  would 
play  the  tyrant ;  we  must  find  a  stronger  tyrant 
to  put  Instinct  in  chains."  So  he  came  to  dream 
of  his  caste  of  Tyrant-Sages,  having  at  their 
disposal  an  authentic  Hell,  "  not  without  the 
limits  of  biology,"  the  product  of,  as  yet,  un- 


THE  ELITE 


20I 


dreamed-of  discoveries  in  Chemistry  and  Balistic 
Science.  The  philosopher  then  would  not  refute 
the  barbarian,  but  annihilate  him  on  the  first 
threat  of  insurrection.  Against  such  authority, 
after  one  or  two  unfortunate  attempts,  there 
could  be  no  possibility  of  rebellion.  An  61ite 
of  intelligent  beings  would  govern  the  world 
for  good  ;  and  the  whole  force  of  Humanity, 
concentrated  in  a  syndicate  of  demi-gods,  would 
hasten  the  advent  of  perfect  Reason.  Sombre 
imaginings,  unworthy  of  that  liberal  spirit ! 
How  should  the  world  be  saved  by  a  false 
principle  ?  Perish  even  the  tyranny  of  the  best ! 
But  the  Reign  of  Terror  of  the  Commune  had 
jangled  out  of  tune  the  sweet  bells  of  Renan's 
harmony.  For  one  moment  of  discord,  he  sought 
to  meet  injustice  with  its  own  arms  and  to  attain 
a  noble  end  by  infamous  means.  The  conception, 
harsh,  false,  profound,  was  worthy  of  the  echo  it 
found  in  the  most  singular  brain  of  our  time. 
The  Prussian,  Nietzsche,  read  of  M.  Renan's 
Dcevas  and  dreamed  of  the  Uebermensch,  of  the 
super-human  master  whose  motto,  worthy  of 
Prussia,  reads  : — Might  is  Right. 

As  for  us,  we  will  hold  rather  (with  Emerson) 
that  the  demi-gods  must  go  ere  God  shall  appear. 
Let  us  diffuse  our  light  rather  than  concentre  its 
life-giving  rays.  .  .  .  Reflect,  M.  Renan,  in  what 


202       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


peril  you  place  the  great  age-long  structures  of 
Truth,  Beauty,  Wisdom,  Civilization,  by  giving 
them  too  narrow  a  base.  .  .  .  Once  I  was  talking 
to  an  eminent  anarchist,  a  being  kind  and  wise  as 
M.  Renan's  Dcevas : — 

"  We  object  to  moderate  fortunes,"  said  he : 
"  We  admit  millionaires.  Our  ideal  would  be  the 
concentration  of  the  wealth  of  the  nation  in  a 
dozen  pockets.  .  .  .  There  would  be  only  a  dozen 
heads  to  fall."  .  .  . 

And  ere  now  the  Titans  have  fallen.  The 
Tyrant-Sage  might  fall !  Suppose  that  by  some 
deep-plotted  combination  the  mass  should  arise 
and  murder  the  demi-gods  in  their  sleep ! 
Suppose  that — owing,  perhaps,  to  an  imperfect 
sterilization  of  their  instruments  of  torture — 
an  epidemic  should  prevail  among  the  Dcevas  ? 
Science,  Truth,  Power,  Civilization  would  dis- 
appear at  one  fell  swoop !  No,  dream  for  dream, 
play  for  play,  give  us  the  pretty  chimaera  of  '48  : 
Let  us  ennoble  the  barbarians  ! 

Meanwhile,  dreaming  not  only  of  Hell  but 
of  Heaven,  the  sad  philosopher  tried  to  invent 
a  less  redoubtable  conpensation  for  Virtue  and 
Wisdom.  They  do  not  meet  their  reward  on 
earth.  Lo,  their  homes  are  burned  and  pillaged, 
a  cruel  enemy  slays  their  sons,  and  a  brother 
arises  to  stab  them  from  behind  !    Yet  in  sinu 


THE  ELITE 


203 


meo  est  haec  spes  reposita ;  the  just  shall  not 
perish  !  The  Elect  shall  see  God  !  Those  who 
have  contributed  to  the  fund  of  the  Universe 
their  atom  of  disinterested  thought  or  feeling 
shall  receive,  in  exchange  for  the  imperishable 
spark  which  they  emit,  a  part  in  the  eternity 
of  the  World-Soul.  Eye  hath  not  seen,  tongue 
may  not  tell,  how  that  due  return  shall  be 
rendered  unto  them.  But  they  shall  be  a  part 
of  the  consciousness  of  the  Over-Soul.  And  when 
the  Divine  shall  become  at  last  all-perfect  and 
all-powerful,  every  particle  of  that  unimaginable 
Being  shall  thrill,  irradiate  with  life  at  once 
separate  and  blended,  at  once  individual  and 
general,  at  once  a  Soul  and  God. 


PART  IV 


CHAPTER  I 


THE  ANTICHRIST 

IN  this  crisis  of  his  life,  Renan  returned  to 
his  work  with  new  ardour,  disgusted  with 
politics.  The  professional  Discourager's  is  a 
melancholy  business,  and  it  is  sad  to  be  in 
the  right  against  the  illusions  of  one's  country. 
Renan  had  tried  to  point  out  the  reasons  for 
the  superiority  of  Prussia  ;  he  had  tried  to  make 
his  country  accept  a  discipline  and  an  ideal.  He 
had  worn,  as  it  were,  on  his  shoulders  the  yoke  of 
Jeremiah  ; 1  he  had  sat  on  the  temple-steps  and 
cried  to  the  people  ;  but  they  had  not  listened. 
The  task  of  his  own  life,  after  all,  was  the  quest 
of  Truth.  Let  Martha  be  busied  with  appearances : 
one  thing  alone  is  needful ;  and  they  who  choose 
the  better  part  sit  in  long  contemplation  at  the 
feet  of  the  Eternal  Realities. 

1  See  a  remarkable  conversation  recorded  in  Goncourfs  Journal 
under  the  date  18  April  1871.  Renan  says,  in  substance — "  I 
am  disgusted  with  the  lack  of  courage  of  the  Deputies  of  Paris. 
They  should  parade  the  streets  and  harangue  the  people  group 
by  group.  If  I  had  been  elected  I  would  have  done  so — had  I 
worn  on  my  shoulders  the  yoke  of  Jeremiah." 

207 


208       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


The  German  invasion,  with  its  terrible  sequels, 
had  proved  to  our  sage  that  brute  force  is  still, 
alas,  the  mistress  of  the  material  world,  leading 
it  whither  she  listeth ;  that,  in  the  conduct  of 
events,  the  enlightened  portion  of  humanity — 
the  disciples  of  reason  —  have  little  influence, 
scant  importance,  and  no  true  cohesion  among 
themselves.  A  Mommsen,  and  a  Strauss,  and  a 
Wagner,  had  each  in  turn  revealed  the  soul  of  a 
Prussian  corporal,  and  a  view  of  practical  politics 
quite  unmodified  by  their  proficiency  in  History, 
Philosophy,  or  Art.  Europe  was  not  yet  in  the 
hands  of  an  international  Elite.  Renan  sighed 
at  the  narrowness  of  broad  minds,  went  into  his 
study,  and  turned  to  the  Past,  since  the  Present 
would  none  of  him. 

His  own  mind  was  the  broadest  of  his  age,  and 
therefore  the  least  passionate.  He  was  incapable 
of  taking  a  side,  accepting  a  limit  to  the  laws 
of  reason.  If  Truth  spoke  from  the  mouth  of 
an  opponent,  he  was  eager  with  his  unqualified 
assent.  In  his  rare  affirmations  he  never  forgot 
that  things  have  always  their  unseen  side,  which 
may  possibly  contradict  all  that  we  should  predi- 
cate from  those  surfaces  within  our  range  of 
vision.  For  the  human  eye — and  the  mind's 
eye  also — is  so  constructed  that  it  cannot  see 
every  face  of  an  object  at  the  same  time.  Renan, 


THE  ANTICHRIST  209 


however,  saw  them  so  immediately  one  after  the 
other,  as  in  a  series  of  rapid  dissolving  views,  that 
his  vision  of  things  was  never  simple,  but  blended, 
as  it  were,  from  a  set  of  contraries.  No  aspect  of 
Truth  engrossed  him  so  entirely  as  to  exclude 
an  instinctive  divination  of  its  opposite.  A  sort 
of  contranitency,  —  if  we  may  use  the  word 
—  an  elastic  reaction  against  pressure,  which 
became  the  main  quality  of  his  mind,  assured 
him  that  the  truth  of  one  thing  does  not 
necessarily  establish  the  falsehood  of  its  apparent 
negation.  The  air  through  which  we  all  see 
the  world  is  in  fact  a  sort  of  vivid  prism,  iri- 
descent, opalescent,  only  habit  has  dulled  our 
sense  of  it.  But  Renan  kept  in  his  mind's  eye 
unimpaired  that  intellectual  iridescence  which 
illuminates  the  inner  vision.  The  truth  of  his 
most  considered  assertions  is  qualified  with  subtle 
reservations.  And  the  unity  of  his  mind,  excep- 
tionally sincere  and  veracious,  is  made  of  a 
thousand  diversities  in  fusion,  as  a  painter  mixes 
his  white  from  a  medley  of  many  colours. 

Hence  inherent  contradictions  :  a  love  of  giv- 
ing himself  the  lie.  Hence  many  a  disconcerting 
strange  predella  painted  underneath  his  sacred 
pictures.  In  no  book  is  this  so  marked  as  in 
the  book  of  these  years :  The  Antichrist.  He 
cannot  contrast  the  terrible  hieratic  Christ  of 

O 


2io       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


the  Apocalypse  with  the  tender  Elder  Brother 
of  the  Gospel  stories,  but  he  exclaims  :  "  Who 
knows  ?  The  image  of  the  Gospel  may  be  false. 
Jesus  may  have  been  the  centre  of  a  group  more 
pedantic,  more  scholastic,  nearer  to  the  Scribes 
and  Pharisees  than  the  Evangelists  would  have 
us  think."  He  cannot  consider  the  obscurity 
which  envelops  the  end  of  St  Paul  without  re- 
flecting that  the  convert  may  be  converted  more 
than  once :  the  disenchanted  saint  may  have 
passed  over  to  the  creed  of  Ecclesiastes  and  the 
Sceptics.  Convinced  that  he  had  given  his  life 
for  a  dream,  Paul  may  have  wandered  despair- 
ing, resigned,  on  some  Iberian  shore,  aware  of 

the    nothingness    of  life  Then,  in  a 

twinkling,  the  ironic  little  transformation  scene 
flashes  out  of  sight,  and  leaves  us  face  to  face 
with  a  soberer  vision  of  the  Past. 

None  of  these  brief  glimpses  into  the  interior 
of  a  thinker's  mind  are  so  cruel  as  the  sacrilegious 
page  wherein  Renan  ascribes  to  Nero,  tearing 
their  last  veils  from  the  Virgin  Martyrs  in  the 
arena,  the  invention  of  a  new  order  of  beauty  : 
the  supreme  grace  of  Christian  modesty.  Such 
pages  bear  too  clear  the  disfiguring  hall-mark 
of  the  dilettante.  In  fact  Renan,  after  1871, 
retraversed  more  seriously  the  crisis  which  had 
menaced  his  moral  health  after  the  disasters  of 


THE  ANTICHRIST  211 


1848.  A  second  journey  to  Italy  in  1875  led 
him  again  to  the  feet  of  his  old  enchantress, 
visible  beauty — again  he  heard  her  whisper — 

"  Flede  ramos,  arbor  alta^ 
Tensa  laxa  viscera^ 
Et  lentescat  rigor  tile 
Quem  dedit  nativitas? 

The  fourth  volume  of  the  Origins  of  Chris- 
tianity is  in  some  sense  the  masterpiece  of  the 
series.  It  is  the  record  of  the  most  memorable 
struggle  between  the  hostile  ideals  of  moral 
and  material  perfection,  written  at  a  time  when 
that  same  struggle  was  a  constant  preoccupa- 
tion of  the  author's  spirit.  In  his  profound 
disappointment  with  Life  there  were  moments 
when  Art,  and  Art  only,  seemed  precious  and 
imperishable  in  Renan's  eyes  ;  when  the  spiritual 
enthusiasm  of  arid  Palestine  appeared,  after  all, 
a  poor  thing  to  him  compared  with  the  divine 
and  innocent  grace  of  Attic  beauty.  He  had 
given  his  life  to  the  Holy  Land,  to  the  worship 
of  holiness  ;  there  were  hours  when  he  half  re- 
gretted that  he  had  not  offered  it  to  Hellas. 
There  are  hours  in  most  lives,  perhaps,  when 
that  which  creates  and  represents  appears  more 
satisfying,  more  positive,  than  that  which  suggests 
and  inspires ;  when  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon 


212       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  REN  AN 


strikes  us  as  more  real  than  the  shadow  of  the 
Cross  on  Calvary.    And  yet  the  Galilean  conquers. 

In  the  first  century  of  Christianity,  its  history 
shifts  gradually  from  Asia  Minor  to  imperial 
Rome.  Two  Romes  were  soon  in  presence.  St 
Paul  in  prison  was  weaving,  no  longer  the  coarse 
Cilician  tissue  of  his  loom,  but  the  spiritual 
fabric  of  the  future,  while  Nero,  the  circus  rider, 
the  aesthetic  athlete,  worshipped  the  art  and  the 
splendour  of  the  decadent  Greeks.  How  Renan 
makes  us  see  them  both  :  the  prophet,  illumin- 
ated by  suffering ;  and  Nero,  "  the  poor  young 
man,"  whose  deplorable  taste  in  Art  had  so 
unfortunate  an  effect  on  his  morals ;  a  mere 
Tenorino  devoured  by  vanity,  not  wholly  bad 
but  wholly  artificial,  debased,  of  irritable  nerves- — 
and  entrusted  with  the  government  of  a  world. 
No  less  vivid  are  the  portraits  of  Titus  and 
Vespasian  :  serious  military  men,  a  little  pro- 
vincial in  tone  and  therefore  all  the  more  en- 
slaved by  the  elderly  graces  of  the  aristocratic 
Berenice. 

For  life,  brilliance,  irony,  force,  this  volume  is 
unmatched.  But  we  miss  the  moral  charm,  the 
rare  deep  fraternal  kindness  of  St  Paul  and 
the  Apostles. 

"  Perhaps  our  race  alone 1  is  capable  of  re- 

1  The  Antichrist,  p.  102, 


THE  ANTICHRIST  213 


alising  virtue  without  faith,  of  blending  hope  and 
doubt  inextricably  together.  An  hour  strikes 
in  the  life  of  European  men  of  genius  when 
they  agree  with  Epicurus.  .  .  .  Whilst  continu- 
ing their  task  with  ardour,  they  feel  a  chill  dis- 
relish for  life  creep  over  them.  Victorious,  they 
wonder  whether  the  cause  for  which  they  fought 
were  worth  so  many  sacrifices,  and,  whilst  con- 
tinuing to  push  the  battle,  many  of  them  admit 
that  wisdom  begins  on  the  day  when  they  are 
content  to  contemplate  Nature  and  enjoy  her. 
There  is,  perhaps,  scarce  one  self-sacrificing 
person,  priest  or  nun,  who,  at  fifty,  has  not 
deplored  a  vow  which  they  continue  to  observe. 
A  spice  of  scepticism  appears  to  us  integral  in  good 
breeding.  We  like  to  hear  the  just  man  say : 
1  Virtue,  thou  art  but  a  name ! '  The  essential 
quality  of  distinction  is  this  faculty  of  soaring 
up  and  dominating  our  own  beliefs,  of  rising 
superior  to  the  cause  for  which  we  are  content  to 
give  our  lives,  of  smiling  at  our  own  most  stringent 
effort.  And  we  love  our  heroes  the  better  when 
we  watch  them  sink  a  moment  by  the  road- 
side, aware  of  the  vanity  of  absolute  convic- 
tions." 

What  a  disenchantment  rings  in  these  accents 
of  crystal  and  silver !  It  is  well,  indeed,  that 
advancing  years  should  take  from  us  something  of 


214 


LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


the  substance  of  our  personality — that  we  should 
grow  wider,  fainter,  and,  as  it  were,  diaphanous  : 
mere  cobwebs  to  catch  the  grace  of  Heaven. 
But  such  a  diminution  of  fibre  as  Renan  shows 
us  at  this  moment  is  nothing  less  than  a  moral 
malady.  Let  us  not  hold  victory  too  cheap ! 
Our  heroes  do  well  to  be  victorious,  for  they 
continue  to  live  in  their  triumph  ;  their  dead 
hands  mould  and  modify  us  from  the  other 
side  the  grave ;  their  effort  has  shaped  our  future. 
And  influence  is  a  sort  of  immortality. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY: 
THE  PHILOSOPHERS 

'  I  AHE  incapacity  to  affirm  does  not  imply  the 

incapacity  to  choose  and  resolve.  The 

least  consistent  in  theory,  in  practice  Renan  was 

the  most  persistent  of  men.    He  followed  his 

meandering  paths  to  the  very  goal    He  was 

willing  to   admit  that  all  is  vanity ;    but  he 

acted  as  though  nothing  were  so  important  as  the 

finishing  of  the  task  he  had  found  to  his  hand. 

His  scepticism  never  paralyzed  the  continuity 

of  his  effort :  a  hermetic  compartment  separated 

his  intelligence  and  his  moral  self. 

Nil  expedit  .  .  .  Laboremus  I     Our    task  is 

of  no  importance,  yet  give  us,  O  Lord,  our 

daily  task !    Vanity  of  Vanities !     But  let  us 

finish  the  fifth  and  sixth  volumes  of  the  Origins 

of  Christianity !  .  .  .  Without  a  lapse,  without  a 

pause,  this  solid  and  inveterate  worker  brought 

the  considerable  sequence  to  a  close.    As  we 

have  said,  this  great  piece  of  history  is  also, 

in   some   sort,  an    autobiography.      The  Anti- 
cs 


216       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


christ  reflects  Renan's  discouragement,  his  dilet- 
tantism. The  Christian  Church  and  Marcus 
Aurelius  show  us  a  Renan  reconciled  with 
democracy,  confident  in  the  gradual  ascent  of 
man,  aware  that  the  greatest  cataclysms  do  not 
really  interrupt  the  imperceptible  progress  of  the 
world. 

Truths  had  a  knack  of  flashing  their  contraries 
into  the  eyes  of  our  philosopher.  In  the  Philosophic 
Dialogues  he  had  elaborated  his  doctrine  of  the 
Mite,  of  a  world  saved  by  the  tyranny  of  a  privileged 
circle  of  adepts.  And  so,  in  the  last  volumes 
of  the  Origins  he  shows  us  the  peril  of  an  aristo- 
cracy of  science,  all  the  danger  and  the  sterility  of 
the  oligarchic  theory.  For,  at  one  moment,  a 
chimerical,  intellectual  syndicate  attempted  to 
govern  Christianity :  the  Church  was  only  saved 
by  breaking  the  yoke  of  the  Gnostics.  Rome  and 
the  world  were  entrusted,  at  one  moment,  to  the 
rule  of  a  philosopher  and  a  saint :  and  Renan  shows 
us  the  intimate  miseries  of  the  reign  of  a  Marcus 
Aurelius.  That  wise  emperor  only  succeeded 
in  giving  a  veneer  of  hypocrisy  to  the  evil  forces 
which  raged  around  him,  and  which  he  refused  to 
recognise.  May  it  not  be  that  Stoicism  and  Gnos- 
ticism perished  for  lack  of  a  public?  That  antiquity 
was  misguided  on  seeking  to  specialise  Truth 
and  Virtue,  in  neglecting  the  education  of  the 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  217 


lower  classes  !  "  I  speak  for  one  in  a  thousand," 
said  Basilides ;  "  the  rest  are  dogs  and  swine."  .  .  . 
"  Suffer  the  little  children  to  come  unto  me,"  said 
He  who  spake  through  the  mouths  of  babes 
and  sucklings.  May  it  not  be  that  the  brain 
can  not  work  without  the  pulse  of  the  heart,  that 
Wisdom  cannot  be  nourished  without  the  warm 
current  of  a  live  fraternity  ? 

With  the  doctrine  of  the  Gnostics,  as  mere 
doctrine,  Renan  had  little  fault  to  find.  The 
metaphysics  of  Basilides  forecast  the  main  ideas 
of  Hegel.  His  polytheistic  cosmogony  covers, 
but  does  not  conceal,  a  philosophic  system.  .  .  . 
Life  is  the  gradual  development  of  a  series  of 
seeds  or  germs  contained  in  the  original  matter 
of  the  Universe.  Filiation  is  the  great  secret : 
each  organism,  abstract  or  concrete,  produces  its 
successor  and  dies.  The  sum  of  the  aspiration 
of  Humanity  makes  for  righteousness.  The  re- 
compense of  the  individual  is  Rest :  complete 
absorption  into  the  substance  of  Deity,  a  divine 
unconsciousness,  a  tiiyuXn  ciyvoia.  Man  passes, 
but  the  Universe  remains,  and  progresses.  The 
Residue  of  Perfection  is  secured  by  the  Frontier- 
Spirit.  The  Frontier-Spirit  is  a  mystic  inter- 
planetary influence  which  carries  the  current  of 
Being  from  the  domain  of  pure  spirit  into  the 
domain  of  pure  matter,  thus  mingles  either  and 


218       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


thus  strengthens  each.  This  free,  starry  secret 
of  a  life  continually  renewed,  this  Breath  from 
Over-the-Border,  this  psQopiov  wsufiu,  answers,  in 
Renan's  own  philosophy,  to  the  Spirit  of  Love. 
Renan  could  have  no  intellectual  quarrel  with 
the  Gnostics. 

What  he  feared  and  loathed  in  them  was  their 
sterile  pride.  Woe  to  the  Truth  which  crystal- 
lises too  soon  !  These  thinkers,  who  imagined 
themselves  to  form  a  close  syndicate  of  Truth 
for  the  sole  use  of  the  initiate,  begat  a  vanity 
fatal  to  progress.  Their  wisdom  was  a  system 
for  solitaries.  Had  it  endured  it  must  have 
caused  at  last  the  establishment  of  a  society  not 
unlike  the  castes  of  India.  The  Gnostic  Saint 
was  already  a  Buddhist  in  posse. 

The  Church  fought  tooth  and  nail  against  this 
hermetic  aristocracy.  For  the  Catholic  ideal  was 
the  good  of  the  masses  ;  her  holiest  instinct  to  im- 
prove the  average  man  whilst  diminishing  the  sum 
of  his  sufferings.  Her  means  were  Faith  and  Works. 
She  preached  Hope  in  the  Man  of  Sorrows, 
Trust  in  the  Beyond.  She  needed  no  meta- 
physical system  :  the  Primitive  Church  had  little 
or  no  theology.  It  is  certain  that  Jesus,  and  his 
immediate  disciples,  neglected  that  part  of  the 
human  mind  which  desires  to  know. 

In  their  house  Science  had  no  mansion.  They 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  219 


spoke  to  the  heart,  to  the  imagination,  not  to 
the  mind.  Christianity  came  not  to  satisfy 
our  curiosity,  but  to  console  the  unhappy,  to 
stimulate  the  moral  sense,  to  teach  men  to  say 
"Our  Father,"  to  bind  them  together  in  a  brotherly 
bond.  In  more  things  than  one,  the  Church  and 
Marcus  Aurelius  pursued  the  same  ideal.  But 
Christianity  counted  on  the  masses,  the  Stoic 
Philosophers  upon  the  Few.  As  we  know,  the 
Galilean  vanquished.  And  yet,  after  her  victory, 
the  Church  was  compelled  to  assimilate  something 
of  the  principles  she  had  conquered.  You  cannot 
say  to  the  world  at  large,  Be  ye  perfect !  Chris- 
tianity, in  her  turn,  felt  the  necessity  of  an  elite — 
of  a  Chosen  Few  set  apart  to  practice  a  superior 
morality.  Without  diminishing  the  broad,  general 
movement  of  her  main  current,  Catholicism  began 
to  reserve,  as  in  some  peaceful  backwater,  the 
clearer,  holier  space  of  the  conventual  life.  To 
the  Monk  and  the  Nun,  it  was  said  :  Be  ye  per- 
fect !  And  the  average  churchman,  soiled  with 
the  dust  of  the  world,  struggled  content,  knowing 
that  somewhere,  out  of  sight,  the  Gospel  was  not 
preached  in  vain. 

In  demonstrating  the  secret  of  Christian  in- 
fluence Renan  fell  again,  to  some  extent,  under 
the  charm  which  had  ruled  his  early  years.  Not 
that  ever  again  he  was  to  say  Credo !  Faith 


220       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 

remained  to  him  a  fountain  sealed,  a  garden 
enclosed — a  garden  at  which  one  slants  regretful 
glances  from  the  sun-beaten  steep  highway.  .  .  . 
It  was  the  beauty  of  Catholicism  which  fascinated 
Ernest  Renan,  which  appealed  to  his  aesthetic 
faculty,  which  revived  the  souvenir  of  his  pious 
youth.  His  mind  still  accepted  a  modified 
Pantheism  as  the  most  reasonable  solution  of 
the  problem  of  the  Infinite.  But,  more  and  more, 
his  fancy  harked  back  to  the  conception  of  a 
Providence  exterior  to  the  universe,  of  a  sym- 
pathetic intimate  spectator  of  the  struggles  of 
the  soul.  "  Man  is  always  more  anthropomorphic 
than  he  thinks/'  said  Goethe.  As  old  age  steals 
on,  leaving  our  brain  intact,  nay,  enriched  by  the 
experience  and  thought  of  our  maturity,  threaten- 
ing the  springs  of  life  only,  the  craving  for  a 
continuation  of  our  activity  beyond  the  grave  is 
natural  to  man.  More  than  once  the  ex-pupil 
of  St  Sulpice  will  demand  of  the  Unknown  God 
some  survival  of  the  holier  instincts  of  our  nature, 
some  possibility  of  progress  after  death.  "  Thou 
art  too  resigned,  dear  Master  !  "  he  cries  to  Marcus 
Aurelius  1 ;  "if  it  be  true  that  even  those  among 
us  who  have  lived  in  communion  with  Deity  be 
extinguished  for  ever,  then  of  a  truth  we  have 
the  right  to  complain.     If  this  world  have  not 

1  Marcus  Aurelius,  p.  268. 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  221 


its  counterpart  Beyond,  how  shall  he  who  has  sacri- 
ficed himself  to  Right  and  Truth  die  contented  ? 
No,  such  an  one  has  the  right  to  blaspheme ! 
Heaven  has  taken  advantage  of  his  good  faith. 
Why  has  Heaven  implanted  in  his  heart  instincts 
of  rectitude  to  which  he  falls  a  victim  ?  Why 
should  the  ungodly  triumph?  Is  it  he  after  all 
who  sees  clear?  If  there  be  no  Beyond,  accursed 
be  the  gods  who  place  so  ill  their  favours  !  .  .  . 
I  am  content  that  the  Future  remain  an  enigma. 
But  if  there  be  no  Future,  then  this  world  of  ours 
is  a  hideous  trap  for  Virtue.  Mind  ye,  I  crave 
not  the  desire  of  the  vulgar.  What  I  ask  is 
neither  to  witness  the  downfall  of  the  ungodly, 
nor  to  enjoy  the  interest  of  my  good  behaviour. 
No  selfish  reward  !  Only  to  be,  only  to  exist 
in  relation  to  the  light,  only  to  continue  the 
thought  begun  on  earth.  .  .  .  To  know  more 
and  more,  to  enjoy  the  truth  at  last,  to  behold 
the  Triumph  of  the  Good  which  I  have  loved  ! " 

More  than  once  at  the  close  of  his  history 
of  the  Origins  of  Christianity \  Renan  asked  him- 
self, What  should  be  the  future  of  the  Catholic 
Church?  He  saw  one  portion  doomed  to  cor- 
ruption, for  the  letter  killeth.  The  Church  will 
resist  the  gradual  growth  of  Truth,  will  heap 
dogma  on  dogma,  invent  miracle  after  miracle. 
Lourdes  and  Tilly-sur-Seules  will  not  save  the 


222       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 

Church.  No  Papal  Bull  will  make  the  sun  stand 
still  in  heaven — B  pur  si  muove !  But  there 
shall  be  a  remnant.  Abandoning  the  excesses 
of  supernaturalism,  Christianity  once  more  shall 
worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  The 
freer  thought  of  Catholicism  will  find  a  new  force 
in  its  combination  with  the  Liberal  forms  of 
Protestantism,  with  enlightened  Judaism,  and 
Idealist  Philosophy.  From  these  shall  spring 
a  new  Church  which,  in  its  turn,  for  its  time,  shall 
serve  the  progress  of  the  Soul,  no  less  abundantly, 
no  less  vitally,  than  those  elder  altars  which  it 
shall  inevitably  supersede. 


CHAPTER  III 

SOUVENIRS 

THERE  comes  an  hour  to  all  objective  minds 
— too  occupied  with  the  world  and  its 
great  problems  to  keep  a  constant  register 
of  their  own  sensations — an  hour  when  they 
recognise  that  they  are  growing  old.  This 
revelation  came  to  Ernest  Renan  in  1875,  one 
twentieth  of  September,  towards  the  evening,  as 
he  watched  the  dews  thicken  on  the  vineyards 
of  Ischia,  and  the  white  sea  deepen  in  tone  as 
the  light  grew  less  intense.  He  was  but  two- 
and-fifty  years  of  age.  Rheumatism,  not  the 
weight  of  years,  stiffened  and  impeded  his  gait, 
affected  his  heart,  took  the  elasticity  from  his 
veins  and  muscles.  He  had  grown  old  ten  years 
too  soon.  With  his  habitual  mild  serenity,  he 
recognised  the  fact  without  impatience — with  a 
movement  of  thankfulness,  rather,  towards  all 
the  benign  influences  which  had  shaped  his  life. 
Even  so,  long  ago,  on  the  banks  of  the  Grau, 

Marcus  Aurelius  had  let  his  mind  turn  piously 

223 


LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


towards  the  tutors  of  his  early  years.  Renan, 
likewise,  passed  a  happy  hour  in  casting  up  his 
debt  to  each  of  these.  That  September  evening 
he  wrote  but  a  few  pages.  The  idea  of  writing 
some  record  of  his  childhood  was  born,  however, 
into  his  reflective  mind. 

Five  years  later,  M.  Quellien  asked  our  sage  to 
preside  at  the  annual  banquet  of  the  Bretons  in 
Paris :  the  Diner  Celtique.  Renan  agreed  to  be 
the  permanent  president  of  this  humble  festivity  : 
a  reunion  of  Celtic  men  of  letters  held  in  the 
purlieus  of  the  Western  Railway  Station.  And 
this  accident  helped  to  revive  in  his  heart  the 
love  of  his  native  place.  "  Quellien  prolonged 
my  life  by  a  good  ten  years,"  cried  Renan.  "  I 
felt  fifty  years  slip  from  my  shoulders  as  I  refound 
myself  in  contact  with  my  earliest  memories."  ,  .  . 
The  historian's  peculiar  curiosity,  which  was  ever 
so  responsive  a  fibre  in  him,  began  to  vibrate  in 
answer  to  this  image  of  the  Past.  "  I  had  seen  the 
primitive  world ! "  It  was  a  world  of  immense 
moral  solidity,  but  filigreed  all  over  on  the  surface 
with  poetic  Pagan  superstitions, — it  was,  we  may 
say,  a  menhir,  thick  with  harebells.  Now  the 
great  block  had  fallen  out  of  place,  and  the 
flowers  with  it.  With  every  year  Brittany  be- 
comes more  and  more  a  mere  agglomeration  of 
western  departments — an  integral  part  of  France. 


SOUVENIRS 


225 


But  Renan  could  remember  the  royal  and  Catholic 
Brittany  of  Charles  the  Tenth. 

Renan's  special  gift  as  a  historian  was  his  art  of 
divining  the  origin  of  things.  There  was  some- 
thing singularly  primitive  and  archaic  at  the  root 
of  his  supple,  and  apparently  decadent,  imagina- 
tion. This  vision  of  Celtic  Brittany  interested 
him,  even  as  the  wanderings  of  the  Beni-Israel  in 
Chaldea,  or  the  small  Christian  communities  on 
the  shores  of  Nero's  Asia  Minor.  His  mother's 
tales,  his  own  first  memories,  put  him  in  touch 
with  a  society,  pious,  primitive,  simple,  such  as  he 
loved  to  delineate.  In  his  own  childhood,  he  had 
contemplated  a  page  of  the  Origins  of  Contem- 
porary France.  This  page  he  wrote  one  day,  and 
treated  it  as  Taine,  for  all  his  genius,  could  never 
have  done. 

A  meditative  moralist,  a  student  of  history,  Renan 
was  no  less  a  man  of  feeling.  Save  Rousseau  or 
Samuel  Johnson,  no  writer's  peculiar  temperament 
has  been  destined  so  greatly  to  influence  modern 
times.  He  had  his  own  magic  by  which  he 
knew  how  to  revive  all  the  tender,  confused,  rudi- 
mentary forces  which  blend  in  a  heart  of  fifteen  : 
love  of  home,  unconscious  love,  awakening 
thought,  the  first  pursuit  of  Truth,  the  first 
elusive  escape  of  Faith.  All  these  rule  and 
inspire  the  Souvenirs  d'Enfance  et  de  Jeunesse, 

P 


226       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


On  the  threshold  of  old  age,  the  philosopher 
turned  and  cast  a  last  long  lingering  glance 
at  the  days  of  his  childhood,  before  the  Angel 
of  Knowledge  had  troubled  the  waters  of  his 
heart.  He  heard  the  drowned  church  bells  of 
the  town  of  Ys  peal  again  through  all  the  waves 
that  have  gone  over  them — obstinate  carillons, 
still  convoking  his  renegade  thoughts  to  a  divine 
service  long  since  silent.  The  priests  of  Treguier 
rose  again  on  his  inner  eye.  He  saw  the  haggard 
silhouette  of  the  Bonhomme  Systeme,  and  the 
dazed  melancholy  figure  of  the  flax-crusher's 
daughter.  He  saw,  in  a  more  delicate  aureole, 
the  little  girls  he  had  played  with  before  his  first 
communion,  and  whose  smile  had  haunted  him 
ever  since.  Most  men  begin  with  the  heart  and 
end  with  the  mind.  Renan  began  with  the  mind, 
and  never  thought  so  much  of  Love  as  after  fifty. 
The  women  and  the  priests,  to  whom  he  owed 
his  breeding,  had  bequeathed  him  the  sentimental 
turn  of  their  imagination  ;  and,  as  he  grew  old, 
this  trait  showed  clearer — as  our  likeness  to  our 
forbears  comes  out  with  our  grey  hairs — in  the 
oddest  contrast  to  the  sceptical  attitude  of  his 
mind.  As  we  climb  down  the  slope  of  later  life,  the 
world  of  our  fifteenth  year,  long  since  cast  aside 
as  the  thing  of  a  child,  revisits  us,  and  revives, 
singularly  fresh  and  dear.    And  in  the  best-filled 


SOUVENIRS 


227 


life,  there  are  hours  in  which  we  are  glad  to 
amuse  ourselves  again  with  the  old  vain  toys 
which  we  broke  a  life-time  ago. 

Thus,  nearing  sixty,  Renan  sought  to  compress 
into  an  hour  the  aroma  of  all  his  early  life  ;  to 
evoke,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  all  he  had  once 
loved  so  much,  so  long  ago.  The  Souvenirs 
are  neither  an  autobiography  nor  a  confession  : 
they  are,  in  Goethe's  phrase,  "  Truth  and  Poetry  " 
— a  long  conversation  with  remembrance,  born  of 
our  instinctive  pity  for  all  that  dies  with  us  when 
we  perish,  of  our  instinctive  wish  that  something, 
at  least,  of  the  heart  of  us  survive.  .  .  . 

No  man  writing  of  himself  was  ever  more 
natural,  more  simple.  Renan's  egotism  is  so 
devoid  of  display,  so  mere  an  outpouring,  that 
it  seldom  irritates  and  never  wearies.  He  takes 
us  into  his  confidence.  He  sits  down  beside  us, 
as  it  were,  and  beguiles  us  with  his  Past ;  as  we 
show  our  children  a  picture  book,  to  pass  the 
time  and  cultivate  their  imagination. 

The  Souvenirs  took  the  world  by  storm. 
They  possess  that  lyric  note  of  personal  utterance 
which  the  public  prizes  in  a  man  already  famous 
And  what  shall  we  say  of  their  success  in  Renan's 
old  home?  Disraeli's  novels  are  not  more  elo- 
quent of  the  "  Semitic  secret  "  than  these  souvenirs 
of  the  prerogative  of  the  Celt.    The  writer  him- 


228       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


self  is  regarded  as  a  mere  epitome  of  his  race. 
He  is  eloquent  with  the  treasured  silence  of 
generations,  rich  with  their  economies  of  thought 
and  imagination — but  not  other  than  they.  The 
clear  green  springs  ;  the  misty  skies ;  the  moors 
dotted  with  menhirs,  and  sprinkled  with  the  silver 
gleam  of  trembling  lady  birches ;  the  Atlantic 
breakers  rolling  on  the  coast  against  the  great 
granite  promontories ;  the  pious,  stolid,  fisher 
folk ;  the  women  of  Ar-Mor,  demure  in  their 
black  gowns  and  coifs  of  white  ;  the  priests  of 
Treguier ;  the  skyward  sweep  of  the  cathedral 
steeple — all  these  animate  and  inspire  their  faith- 
ful spokesman.  These  are  responsible  for  the 
genius  of  Ernest  Renan,  and  his  glory  reflects 
on  them.  .  .  .  Such,  at  least,  is  the  refrain  of  the 
Souvenirs. 

In  the  middle  of  August  1884,  Renan  re- 
turned to  Treguier.  He  had  scarcely  seen  the 
place  since  he  left  it  forty  years  before.  He 
had  doubtless  dreaded  the  return.  But  he  came 
back  as  the  local  prophet.  Despite  some  natural 
opposition  on  the  part  of  the  ultra-Catholics,  the 
author  of  the  Souvenirs  was  received  so  warmly 
that  he  determined  to  spend  a  part  of  every  year 
in  his  native  clime.  Near  Lannion,  and  nearer 
Perros  Guirec,  he  discovered  a  comfortable  manor- 
house — Rosmapamon — which  his  children  continue 


SOUVENIRS 


229 


to  inhabit.  It  is  a  pleasant,  long,  low  old  house, 
standing  among  woods  close  to  the  sea.  Thence 
the  name  and  fame  of  Ernest  Renan  spread  through 
the  country  side.  The  peasants  and  fisher  folk, 
who  treated  him  with  a  rustic  familiarity  never 
repulsed,  were  aware  of  the  fame  of  the  sage 
of  Rosmapamon,  though  they  knew  not  what 
had  earned  it.  The  women  inclined  to  suppose 
him  a  Saint  — "  Cest  un  bien  grand  Saint, 
Monsieur ! "  said  one  old  dame,  I  believe,  to  M. 
Spronck.  The  men,  seated  in  the  tavern,  swore 
that  he  was  a  great  Republican.  Quite  lately 
there  was  a  public  fete  at  Treguier  to  inaugurate 
an  inscription  on  M.  Renan's  natal  house,  at 
present  the  property  of  his  children.  On  this 
occasion  our  philosopher  was  greatly  extolled  for 
his  Republican  principles.  .  .  .  Were  they  so 
much  out  of  count,  these  simple  people,  in  their 
definition  of  the  greatest  Religious  Critic,  the  truest 
Liberal,  after  all,  of  Modern  France  ? 


CHAPTER  IV 


ECCLESIASTES  IN  A  DEMOCRACY 

/T*HE  Souvenirs  cTEnfance  et  de  Jeunesse 
■J*  had  appeared  in  1883.  They  reflect 
the  picturesque  and  emotional  side  of  Renan — 
Celtic,  Catholic  in  spite  of  all,  and  curious  of 
the  Past.  Another  view  of  his  complex  tempera- 
ment is  given  in  a  volume  which  came  out  a  few 
months  earlier  :  a  translation  of  Ecclesiastes 
with  an  introduction.  Here  we  see  his  dis- 
enchanted self, — modern,  agnostic,  dilettante. 

"  The  author  of  Ecclesiastes"  says  the  trans- 
lator, "  is  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Job  grown 
seven  centuries  older.  His  objurgations  against 
God,  his  eloquent  and  terrible  blasphemies,  have 
sunk  into  the  trick  of  a  hopeless  trifling.  The 
patriarch  has  suffered  a  change  into  the  man 
of  letters  about  town.  He  has  no  longer  the 
strength  to  be  angry  with  the  Eternal :  Where 
is  the  use  of  it  ?  " 

After  a  great  experience  of  human  things, 

Ecclesiastes  has    lost   his    faith  in  progress. — 

230 


ECCLESIASTES  IN  A  DEMOCRACY  231 


The  world  offers  a  succession  of  phenomena 
which  repeat  themselves  without  essential  change. 
What  has  been,  will  be.  The  wheel  of  things 
revolves,  and  must  revolve,  ever  in  the  same  circle. 
Our  attempts  at  reform  and  progress  are  mere 
chimseras.  Nothing  worth  knowing  is  knowable. 
Man  is  hopelessly  limited  by  his  faculties  as  by 
his  destiny.  All  is  vanity  !  The  only  wisdom  is 
not  to  be  unnecessarily  miserable  about  that  which 
it  is  certain  we  were  never  meant  to  alter. 

Such  is  the  melancholy  philosophy  of  Cohelet. 
"  No  man,"  says  Renan,  "  was  ever  less  of  a 
pedant.  The  clearest  view  of  a  truth  never 
prevents  him  from  seeing,  a  second  later,  the 
contrary  aspect  of  that  truth  in  just  as  sharp 
relief.  His  disenchantment  does  not  make  him 
in  the  least  out  of  temper  with  the  conventions  of 
society.  In  him,  the  motives  for  living  are  all 
slackened  and  relaxed  ;  but  his  lively  taste  for 
life  and  its  pleasures  remains  unimpaired.  He 
no  longer  seeks  to  explain  the  scheme  of  things, 
nor  to  invent  symbols  in  which  to  incarnate 
a  precise  religion.  He  amuses  himself  rather 
with  delightful  philosophic  vagaries.  '  There  is 
another  evil  under  the  sun '  (he  might  have  said) 
— and  haply  is  it  the  greatest  of  them  all.  And 
this  is  the  presumption  of  spirit  which  seeks 
to  explain  the  universe  in  a  sentence  four  words 


232 


LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


long.  Woe  unto  him  who  shall  not  contradict 
himself  at  least  once  a  day." 

The  soul  of  Ernest  Renan  animates  this 
Ecclesiastes  of  1882.  The  portrait  is  a  living 
likeness.  Only,  save  in  quite  his  darkest  hours, 
Renan  would  scarcely  have  agreed  that  the  world 
revolves  eternally  in  an  unalterable  circle.  How- 
ever pessimistic,  he  was  still  a  Liberal.  Almost 
always  he  saw  the  course  of  the  universe  slowly 
spinning  down  the  grooves  of  Time,  in  a  spiral, 
imperceptibly  advancing  even  when  it  appears 
to  recede.  If  nothing  be  wholly  good,  nothing 
also  is  wholly  harmful.  "  My  philosophy,"  he 
wrote  in  the  Souvenirs,  "  inclines  me  to  believe 
that  good  and  evil,  pain  and  pleasure,  the 
beautiful  and  the  ugly,  slide  into  one  another  as 
imperceptibly  as  the  tints  which  blend  on  the 
neck  of  a  dove."  There  is  no  Absolute — All  is 
relative.  Or  if  an  absolute  exist  in  the  region  of 
the  infinite,  we,  by  the  constitution  of  our  natures, 
are  condemned  to  perceive  only  the  relative. 
The  Order  of  things  is  no  Finality,  "  knowing 
what  and  why  it  worketh  in  a  most  exact  order 
or  law,"  but  a  sort  of  happy  accident  without 
purpose  or  precision.  And  yet — who  knows  ? 
From  this  fortuitous  combination  there  may 
proceed  the  Conscient  Soul,  whose  presentiment 
is  deep  implanted  in  our  heart.    The  progress  of 


ECCLESIASTES  IN  A  DEMOCRACY  233 


the  Universe  is,  perchance,  the  long  and  painful 
Advent  of  the  unborn  God.  "  Nothing  proves 
that  there  exists  a  Soul  of  the  Universe ;  nothing 
proves  the  contrary.  Let  us  deny  nothing,  affirm 
nothing.    We  may  hope." 

In  reading  Mr  Tollemache's  "  Recollections 
of  Mark  Pattison  "  I  have  been  much  struck  by 
many  similarities  between  his  melancholy  "  Pis- 
gah-sights "  (as  Browning  would  have  said)  and 
Ernest  Renan's.  Both  indeed  were  disenchanted 
men,  both  still  under  the  emotional  sway  of  a 
creed  in  which  their  reason  had  ceased  to  ac- 
quiesce. Pattison  observed  that  the  idea  of  Deity 
has  now  been  "  defecated  to  a  pure  transparency," 
and  Renan  might  have  used  the  phrase  :  yet  each 
was  haunted  by  a  more  personal  religious  Ideal, 
while  for  ever  baffled  by  philosophical  per- 
plexities. Only,  in  this  baffling,  Renan  took,  on 
the  whole,  a  certain  pleasure,  such  as  robust  con- 
stitutions find  in  walking  against  a  wind,  while 
Pattison's  slighter  nature  shivered  and  dwindled 
in  the  blast  Both  inclined  to  imagine  a  conceiv- 
able survival  of  the  soul,  contingent  on  its  progress 
in  this  mortal  sphere ;  and  either  would  have 
defined  this  hoped-for  after  life — so  dimly  adum- 
brated, so  faintly  apprehended,  —  rather  as  a 
possible  posthumous  influence  for  good  than  as 
a  renewal  of  our  human  personality  ;  and  yet, 


234       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


each  in  softer  hours,  dreamed,  half  playfully,  of 
his  childhood's  Paradise.  "  Shall  I  have  my 
library  in  Heaven  ? "  queried  the  scholarly  Rec- 
tor of  Lincoln,  and  Renan,  the  dreamer,  laid  up 
stores  of  pleasant  visions  for  the  eternal  night, 
as  though  he  were  half  persuaded  that,  after 
death,  he  might  still  need  an  amusement. 

An  optimist  at  heart,  Renan  did  not  despair. 
"  This  life  of  four  days  produces  some  enduring 
fruits.  ...  I  can  not  suffer  to  hear  our  Humanity 
insulted — poor  thing  of  grief,  thrown  like  an 
orphan  upon  the  earth,  scarce  sure  of  the  morrow, 
which  finds  means,  between  the  birth-throe  and 
the  death-agony,  to  invent  art,  science,  virtue." 
Renan  had,  as  he  confessed,  despite  experience 
of  the  Dead  Sea  fruit,  "  a  lively  taste  for  the 
universe."  He  looked  forward,  though  with  but 
a  moderate  cheerfulness.  He  thought  with  Pat- 
tison  that,  when  Reform  has  finished  her  perfect 
work,  the  world,  destitute  of  originality  and 
variety,  will  become  a  sort  of  universal  China. 
He  foresaw  that  everything  tended  towards 
Democracy,  towards  Socialism  even,  towards  an 
Americanising  of  our  frame  of  life,  a  prosperous 
vulgarity,  repugnant  to  a  man  of  taste.  But 
after  all,  who  knows  ?  A  sort  of  modified 
Chicago  may  be  a  less  insupportable  condition 
of  existence  than  we  imagine.      Pattison  was 


ECCLESIASTES  IN  A  DEMOCRACY  235 


too  innately  the  Don,  the  College  Man,  to  con- 
template such  a  change  without  a  shudder.  But 
Renan,  who  was  a  human  being  and  a  dreamer 
first  and  a  scholar  afterwards — mingled  some 
indulgence  and  much  curiosity  with  his  personal 
distaste.  "  Who  knows,  the  general  commonness 
may  guarantee  the  happiness  of  the  Chosen 
Few !  American  vulgarity  would  not  have 
buried  Giordano  Bruno,  nor  persecuted  Galileo " 
(Preface  to  Souvenirs). 

On  this  subject  Renan  has  embodied  his  re- 
flections in  a  series  of  philosophical  comedies, 
which  he  composed,  during  his  autumn  holidays 
in  the  Isle  of  Ischia  in  1877  and  in  1879,  and 
which  he  completed  later  at  Rosmapamon.  The 
book  appeared  as  a  whole  in  1888  under  the 
title  of  Philosophical  Dramas.  Three  of  these 
tragi-comedies,  Caliban,  The  Fountain  of  Youth, 
The  Priest  of  Nemi,  are  priceless  documents  for 
the  critic  of  Renan's  character  and  opinions, 
which  the  fourth,  The  Abbess  of  fouarre,  on  the 
whole  a  regrettable  performance,  obscures  from 
the  height  of  its  bad  eminence. 

The  dramas  we  have  mentioned  are  chiefly 
concerned  with  the  problems  of  Democracy. 
They  show  the  attitude  towards  uncultured 
socialism  of  a  Liberal  Philosopher.  Aristocratic 
by  temperament  and  education,  for  no  aristocracy 


236       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


is  so  close  as  the  sacerdotal,  Renan  was  by 
principle  a  sort  of  Socialist,  or  at  least  Republican, 
malgrt  luL  After  the  Commune,  through  fear  of 
the  tyranny  of  the  mob,  he  had  warmly  advocated 
the  restoration  of  the  legitimate  Bourbon.1  After 
the  stifling  experience  of  the  Ordre  Moral,  he 
had  seen  what  a  restoration  of  the  Throne  and 
Altar  would  really  mean  :  the  dominion  of  ortho- 
doxy, that  is  to  say,  tyranny  plus  hypocrisy,  the 
most  monstrous  regimen  of  all. 

"  I  love  Prospero  (he  writes  in  Caliban),  but  I 
do  not  love  the  men  who  would  re-establish  him 
upon  the  throne.  Caliban,  improved  by  power,  is 
more  to  my  liking.  Caliban,  after  all,  is  more 
useful  to  us  scholars  than  Prospero  would  be  with 
the  Jesuits  for  his  wire-pullers.  In  the  present 
circumstances,  the  Government  of  Prospero  would 
be,  not  a  renaissance,  but  a  crushing-flat  of  all  free 
intelligence.  Let  us  keep  Caliban  ! " — that  is  to 
say,  Democracy.  Under  all  his  airs  of  ironic 
aristocracy,  Renan  kept  the  staunchest  sense  of 
the  rights  of  the  people.  He  was  indeed  at  heart 
more  Radical,  more  anti-clerical,  than  he  cared  to 
appear.  When  Jules  Ferry  launched  his  famous 
Article  VII.,  almost  all  cultured  France  deplored 
the  system  of  petty  religious  persecution  which  it 
inaugurated  :  clerical  colleges  closed,  monks  and 

1  Rcforme  intelleduelle  et  morale. 


ECCLESIASTES  IN  A  DEMOCRACY  237 


nuns  expelled  from  their  pious  homes,  convents  in- 
ordinately taxed.  "A  most  illiberal  persecution  !  " 
assented  Renan,  "and,  what  is  more  .  .  .  insufficient! 
I  would  not  close  a  single  clerical  college  :  I  would 
only  debar  the  pupils  of  the  Regular  Orders  from 
every  public  career."  At  heart,  in  his  old  age, 
Renan  returned  to  the  democratic  point  of  view 
exhibited  in  his  first  social  study,  the  "  Future 
of  Science."  The  vision  is  less  brilliant,  but 
it  is  not  hopeless.  Caliban  (Democracy),  the 
unformed,  mindless  brute,  educated  by  his  own 
responsibility,  makes  an  adequate  ruler  after  all, 
no  worse,  if  not  wiser,  than  those  who  went  before. 
Prospero  (the  Aristocratic  Principle,  or,  if  we  will, 
the  Mind)  accepts,  not  unwillingly,  his  own  de- 
thronement from  practical  affairs  for  the  sake  of 
greater  liberty  in  the  intellectual  life  :  for  Caliban 
proves  an  effective  policeman,  and  leaves  his 
superiors  the  freest  of  hands  in  the  laboratory.  Ariel 
(the  Religious  Principle1)  learns  at  last  not  to  give  up 
the  ghost  at  the  faintest  hint  of  change.  Robuster, 
if  less  ethereal,  he,  too,  flourishes  in  the  service  of 
Prospero  under  the  external  government  of  the 
many-headed  Brute.  The  future  of  Ariel  is  in 
fact  secured  by  the  unconscious  co-operation  of 
Prospero  and  Caliban.     Every  great  religion  is 

1  Compare  with  The  Tempest  Isaiah  xxix.,  where  Jerusalem  is 
figured  under  the  symbolic  name  of  Ariel, 


238       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


the  result  of  some  such  fecund  misunderstanding. 
Nor  is  the  future  of  Science  less  secure.  "  In  the 
Ledger  of  Knowledge  every  truth  is  added  up, 
every  error  omitted.  Error  is  sterile,  essentially 
perishable."  1  Truth  alone  knows  how  to  capitalise 
her  vast,  her  continually  multiplying  resources, 
which,  as  it  were  at  compound  interest,  increase 
from  year  to  year.  In  spite  of  all,  the  only  need- 
ful things  are  not  destined  to  succumb  :  Religion 
and  Knowledge  are  as  imperishable  as  the  world 
which  they  dignify. 

Thus,  out  of  the  depths,  rises  unvanquished  the 
essential  idealism  of  Ernest  Renan. 

Faith  and  Science  had  ever  occupied  his  mind. 
On  the  threshold  of  old  age,  his  philosophy 
became  aware  of  another  great  entity,  of  Love, 
which,  up  to  the  age  of  five-and-fifty  or  there- 
abouts, had  appeared  to  him  a  personal  accident, 
of  keen  interest  doubtless  to  the  individuals  it 
concerned,  but  scarcely  a  problem,  hardly  an 
immense  universal  force  such  as  Beauty,  Virtue, 
Truth,  or  Faith.  When  we  are  old,  we  secretly 
prize  that  which  we  disregarded  most  in  its  due 
season.  Love  and  the  charm  of  woman  took  a 
great  importance  in  the  eyes  of  our  philosopher, 
grown  prematurely  aged,  the  unwieldiest  of  mortals, 
the  wittier  Dr  Johnson  of  Parisian  society.  There 

1  Preface  to  Feuilles  D£tach{es. 


ECCLESIASTES  IN  A  DEMOCRACY  239 


is  something,  we  must  own,  a  little  grotesque  in 
this  tardy  Cupid  perched  on  the  rim  of  Socrates' 
basket.  Love  as  the  interplanetary  essence,  the 
running  music  of  the  spheres  binding  all  exis- 
tence in  one  harmony,  Love  the  ps06ptov  mev/ia 
may  occupy  the  sage  at  any  decade.  And  we 
are  moved  and  pleased  by  the  ageing  scholar's 
recollection  of  the  girlish  faces  which  had  bright- 
ened existence  for  him  some  forty  years  ago. 
But  that  were  enough ;  we  did  not  desire  the 
Abbesse  de  Jouarre ! 

"  At  Christmas  we  no  more  desire  a  rose  " — 

And  the  rose,  of  an  odd  blue  unhealthy-looking 
sort,  takes  to  blooming  in  Renan's  frostiest  season. 

His  life,  as  all  who  knew  him  can  aver,  was 
ever  the  life  of  a  saint,  and  would  appear  of 
the  purest,  judged  by  the  canons  of  any  doctrine. 
Quaintly  enough,  he  considered  that  this  white 
apex  of  his  gave  him  a  singularly  favourable 
point  of  view  for  scrutinising  the  nice  enigmas 
of  the  heart.  In  the  Abbesse  of  Jouarre  he 
writes  the  apology  of  instinct.  Chastity,  says  he, 
is  often  only  another  name  for  the  merest  social 
prudence  :  were  the  world  to  end  to-morrow  we 
should  all  abandon  ourselves  without  remorse  to 
our  most  passionate  desires.  His  excuse  must  be 
that,  in  his  peculiar  mind,  the  most  frivolous 


24o       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


fantasies  slide  into  philosophic  symbols.  ...  In 
the  course  of  the  universe  Renan  descried  two 
impelling  forces  —  the  gradual  process  which 
develops,  and  the  rare  divine  capricious  impulse 
of  spontaneity,  which,  as  with  a  leap  and  a  bound, 
hurries  on  the  slow  progress  of  cosmic  elabora- 
tion ;  steps  in,  at  difficult  moments,  like  a  god 
out  of  a  machine  ;  suggests  Speech  to  the  bleat- 
ing and  calling  Bushmen  ;  makes  the  perplexed 
savage,  as  he  notches  his  tally,  dream  of  writing 
and  arithmetic  ;  which,  in  fact,  is  continually  inter- 
vening with  the  happiest  effect,  in  the  intermin- 
able evolution  of  the  god  from  the  sea-anemone. 
Love,  in  the  eyes  of  Renan,  was  the  constant 
manifestation  of  this  force  of  spontaneity  without 
which  no  great  thing  had  fully  achieved  its  being. 
Woman  is  the  pure  depositary  of  instinct ;  and,  as 
such,  she  is  precious  above  all  things  in  the  eyes 
of  the  philosopher. 

"  The  more  man  develops  his  brain,  the  more 
he  dreams  of  the  opposite  pole,  of  the  Irrational, 
of  a  repose  in  complete  ignorance — of  the  woman 
who  is  only  a  woman,  of  the  instinctive  being 
whose  acts  are  guided  by  the  impulse  of  an 
obscurer  consciousness.  .  .  .  When  our  medita- 
tions have  led  us  to  the  last  term  of  doubt — then 
the  spontaneous  affirmation  of  the  Good  and  the 
Beautiful   in  a  woman's  soul  enchants  us,  and 


ECCLESIASTES  IN  A  DEMOCRACY  241 


may  yet  give  the  casting  vote.  .  .  .  Through  her 
we  are  still  in  union  with  that  eternal  source  of 
things,  wherein  God  is  reflected." 1 

It  was  this  difference  in  woman  which  attracted 
Renan.  Here  was  something  at  his  hand  whose 
movements  he  could  not  predicate,  whose  organs 
and  whose  instincts  obeyed  apparently  different 
laws  to  those  which  regulated  his  own  being. 
The  curiosity  of  the  philosopher  was  invincibly 
attracted..  We  all  know  how,  in  the  Indian 
drama,  the  men  speak  in  Sanscrit,  the  heroines 
in  Pracrit.  Renan  knew  his  Sanscrit  grammar 
by  heart ;  it  was  stale  to  him.  In  his  old  age  he 
longed  to  learn  this  Pracrit  poetry  of  woman. 
"  If  born  again,"  he  said  in  one  of  his  last 
prefaces,  "  I  would  be  born  a  woman." 

Woman,  divinised  in  Renan's  later  philosophy, 
repaid  a  hundredfold  the  adulation  of  the  sage. 
Uncouth  in  frame  and  gait,  as  some  gnome-like 
Breton  saint,  unworldly  as  the  village  cure  he 
always  looked  like,  Renan  became  the  arbiter 
of  the  more  intellectual  elegancies  of  Paris.  Fair 
ladies  slept  happy  when  they  had  exhibited  him 
in  their  salons  ;  bonnets  from  Virot  drooped  a 
trifle  disconcerted  at  the  uncompromising  scholar- 
ship of  his  lectures  at  the  College  of  France  ; 
latter-day  Magdalenes  consulted  him  as  to  the 

1  Preface  an  Souvenirs  (PEnfance  et  de  Jeunesse. 

Q 


242       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 

state  of  their  conscience,  and  music-hall  singers 
asked  his  opinion  on  their  songs.  We  have 
spoken  of  Samuel  Johnson.  The  great  Doctor 
himself  did  not  yield  a  more  undisputed  or  a 
less-to-be-expected  social  sway  over  last-century 
London  than  Ernest  Renan  over  the  Paris  of 
the  Eighties.  Victor  Hugo,  perhaps,  was  more 
of  a  popular  enthusiasm,  but  Renan  was  both 
Society's  and  Caliban's  special  prophet.  Perhaps 
the  good  opinion  they  entertained  of  him  may 
have  influenced  our  philosopher's  estimate  of 
Society,  and  of  Caliban.  For  to  both  of  these, 
in  his  latter  days,  he  became  extraordinarily 
indulgent. 

In  1879  Renan  had  been  elected  to  the  French 
Academy.  The  Academy  accepted  him  with  re- 
luctance ;  but  we  may  say  that  he  reigned  there, 
even  as  he  reigned — a  placid,  benevolent,  am- 
biguous divinity — over  most  of  the  learned 
societies  of  Paris.  President  of  the  Asiatic 
Society  in  1882,  he  was,  in  the  summer  of  1884, 
appointed  Administrator  of  the  College  of  France 
— Principal,  or  Rector,  as  we  should  say  at 
Oxford.  He  came  into  residence  on  his  return 
from  Rosmapamon.  The  local  divinity  was 
poorly  housed  in  the  old  building  of  the  Rue  des 
Ecoles  ;  a  meagre  study  looking  north  did  not 
spare  his  rheumatism  ;  the  narrow  bedrooms  were 


ECCLESIASTES  IN  A  DEMOCRACY  243 


worthy  of  a  convent,  but  there  was  a  fair-sized 
salon  to  frame  Scheffers  pictures,  and  endless 
garrets  for  the  innumerable  books.  It  is  doubtful 
if  Renan  was  ever  happier  than  in  this  inconvenient 
apartment.  After  his  death  his  devoted  wife,  in 
setting  his  papers  in  order,  found  in  a  drawer 
a  collection  of  old  half-sheets,  backs  of  envelopes, 
and  such  like,  on  which,  from  time  to  time,  her 
husband  had  scrawled  his  reflections.  On  one 
of  these  she  read  :  "  I  have  known  the  grip  of 
poverty,  but  never  have  I  been  so  badly  housed 
as  at  the  College  of  France."  Since  then  the 
residence  has  been  twice  enlarged  to  suit  two 
successive  Administrators,  and  at  present  it  is 
all  that  health  and  commodity  require.  As 
much,  and  more,  would  have  been  done  for 
Renan  had  it  occurred  to  him  to  ask  for  repairs. 
But  it  is  charmingly  characteristic  of  the  man 
that  he  never  thought  of  it.  In  some  moment 
of  irritation  he  confided  to  a  private  Bocca  di 
Leone,  and  perhaps  to  the  ear  of  the  Eternal,  his 
just  dissatisfaction  .  .  .  and  then  forgot  it.  I 
doubt  if  he  would  have  suffered  an  improvement. 
It  is  certain  that  he  would  not  have  exchanged 
his  beloved  college  for  the  palace  of  the  Elysee. 

The  least  practical  of  men,  Renan  proved  an 
admirable  Administrator.  Whatever  he  set  his 
hand  to  do,  he  did  it  with  all  his  might.  One 


244       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


of  his  colleagues  has  set  on  record  the  unsuspected 
firmness  that  underlay  his  charming  genius  : — 

"  Very  indulgent  to  others,  and  convinced  that 
few  of  the  things  for  which  men  torment  them- 
selves are  really  worth  the  trouble,  there  was  one 
thing  as  to  which  he  was  ever  inflexible  ;  for  if 
we  seek  the  continual  motive  of  his  life,  in  the 
sphere  of  action,  we  shall  find  it  to  have  been 
the  most  abstract  sense  of  duty.  This  man,  who 
seemed  to  prize  especially  the  grace  of  courtesy, 
among  all  the  virtues  of  St  Sulpice,  who  always 
seemed  to  seek  for  the  phrase  most  pleasant  to 
the  ear  of  his  interlocutor,  be  he  whom  he  might, 
and  who  often  carried  the  caress  of  his  amiability 
to  the  verge  of  an  apparent  irony — this  man, 
so  indifferent  and  so  pliant  in  appearance,  became 
a  bar  of  iron  so  soon  as  one  sought  to  wrest  from 
him  an  act  or  a  word  contrary  to  the  intimate 
sense  of  his  conscience."  1 

No  man  had  a  stronger  sense  of  a  professional 
engagement.  Tortured  with  rheumatism,  faint 
with  the  oppressed  action  of  his  heart,  he  never 
let  his  ill-health  interfere  with  his  lectures.  I 
have  seen  him  carried  down  the  steep  staircase 
of  the  College  by  hired  porters — his  bulk  made 
it  no  easy  thing  to  do — in  order  to  attend  an 

1  James  Darmesteter,  Ernest  Return.  See  Critique  et  Politique , 
p.  64. 


ECCLESIASTES  IN  A  DEMOCRACY  245 


election  of  the  Academy.  The  least  personal, 
the  least  glorious  of  his  labours  occupied  him 
most.  The  last  months  of  his  life  were  given 
to  the  volume  on  the  Rabbis  of  France  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  which  he  was  compiling  from 
the  notes  of  Dr  Neubauer,  and  which,  I  suppose, 
scarce  one  of  my  readers  will  have  read,  or  even 
heard  of.  The  most  arid,  the  most  ungrateful 
of  tasks,  Renan  was  delighted  to  subject  himself 
to  this  labour,  which  he  deemed  useful,  and  which 
no  one  certainly  would  undertake  if  he  left  it 
undone.  At  the  same  moment  all  Paris,  nay, 
all  the  elite  of  Europe,  was  smiling  over  the 
exquisite  Feuilles  Detachees.  I  have  little  doubt 
that  in  his  heart  of  hearts,  Renan  preferred  the 
Rabbis. 

Traversed  by  ill -health,  disciplined  by  hard 
work,  these  years  of  apotheosis,  these  years  of 
the  eighties,  were  very  happy  years,  full  of  family 
love,  full  of  a  just  fame,  to  which  Renan  was 
never  indifferent ;  full  of  the  flattery  of  popular 
applause.  Surrounded  by  those  he  loved — his 
delightful  wife  ("  She  must  have  been  specially 
made  for  me,"  he  used  to  say) ;  his  gifted, 
sensitive  son  ;  his  exquisite  daughter,  in  whom 
his  dreams  of  Celtic  grace  had  come  to  a  perfect 
flower ;  with  his  grandchildren  about  his  knees, 
Paris  at  his  feet,  Renan  spent  happy  winters6  in 


246       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


his  high-perched  study  of  the  College,  and  happy 
summers  in  his  Breton  manor.  With  Ecclesiastes, 
he  exclaimed,  more  than  once,  that  this,  at  least, 
is  not  vanity  :  to  grow  old  with  the  wife  of  our 
youth,  and  to  enjoy  the  modest  fortune  amassed 
by  one's  honest  labours.  That  fortune  was  very 
modest,  it  is  true  ;  but  no  shadow  of  money  cares, 
no  thought  for  the  morrow,  ever  touched  the 
serene  self-detachment  of  this  inveterate  disciple 
of  Mary.  His  children  still  smile  when  they  re- 
call how,  one  afternoon,  in  their  private,  domestic 
Commission  of  the  Budget,  Madame  Renan  ex- 
posed the  narrow  extent  of  the  family  resources. 
"  'Tis  true,  'tis  true,"  said  Renan,  with  sagacious 
impersonal  calm,  as  he  swayed  himself  from  side 
to  side.  "  Money  shows  no  signs  of  rolling  our 
way  !  "  But  the  fact  appeared  less  important  to 
him,  it  was  evident,  than  the  date  of  the  last  dis- 
covered Himyarite  inscription.  Care  and  trouble 
came  not  nigh  him. 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  I  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  M.  and  Madame  Renan  and  their 
children.  Well  do  I  remember  the  day,  the  year, 
the  season!  It  was  in  September  1880.  I  was 
travelling  in  Italy  with  my  parents.  At  Venice 
we  fell  in  with  a  friend  of  my  father's — Signor 
Castellani,  the  archaeologist.  He  invited  us  to 
spend  a  day  at  Torcello  with  the  Renans,  Sir 


ECCLESIASTES  IN  A  DEMOCRACY  247 


Henry  Layard,  and  his  wife.  I  was  a  young  girl 
then,  more  familiar  with  the  Nineveh  Courts  of 
the  British  Museum  (for  which  I  worshipped  Sir 
Henry  Layard)  and  with  Signor  Castellani's 
exquisite  Bronze  Mask  in  the  same  collection, 
than  with  any  writing  of  M.  Renan's.  In  fact, 
save  for  a  lecture  on  Marcus  Aurelius,  which  I 
had  heard  him  deliver  a  few  months  before,  I 
knew  him  only  by  repute,  as  a  heretic  (that  was 
attractive),  and  a  philologist  (which  seemed  less 
interesting).  But  after  the  first  half-hour  in  his 
company  I  saw  that  here,  here  was  the  Man  of 
Genius !  I  thought  him  like  the  enchanter 
Merlin — not  Burne-Jones'  graceful  wizard,  but 
some  rough-hewn,  gnome  -  like,  Saint-Magician 
of  Armor.  What  a  leonine  head,  with  its  silvery 
mane  of  soft,  grey  hair,  surmounted  that  massive 
girth !  What  an  elfin,  delicate  light  shone  in 
the  clear  eyes,  and  lurked  in  the  sinuous  lines 
of  the  smile  !  How  lucid,  how  natural,  how 
benign  the  intelligence  which  mildly  radiated 
from  him  !  M.  Renan  was  at  his  best  on  that 
occasion.  We  all  felt  ourselves  in  the  glad 
society  of  an  Immortal.  ...  I  still  see  the  little 
Italian  gunboat  cutting  through  the  bright  lagoon 
towards  the  desolate  shores  of  Torcello,  fringed 
with  scarlet-dotted  pomegranate  hedges  and 
wastes  of  lilac-tipped  sea-lavender !     How  bril- 


248       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


liant  the  mother-island  looked  in  her  abandon- 
ment. The  brown  old  church  inspired  M.  Renan. 
At  that  moment,  with  a  heart  divided  between 
the  glory  of  Hellas  and  the  spiritual  grace  of 
Christianity,  few  things,  indeed,  could  have 
touched  him  nearer  than  that  ancient  Mosaic, 
where  the  Apocalyptic  Angels  pour  the  Wrath 
of  God  from  vials  shaped  like  the  purest  classic 
cornucopiae.  He  stood  long  in  front  of  it.  He 
discoursed  to  the  eminent  archaeologists  who 
accompanied  him  ;  we  all  listened,  we  girls  no 
less  earnestly  than  they,  if  with  less  understanding. 
At  first  I  had  thought  him  ugly,  I  confess.  But,  as 
he  spoke,  he  grew  almost  handsome.  The  great 
head,  held  on  one  side,  half  in  criticism,  half  in 
propitiation,  was  so  puissant  in  its  mass ;  the 
blue  eyes  beamed  with  wit  and  playful  kindness. 
How  he  savoured,  and  made  us  savour,  that 
image  of  the  anger  of  the  Eternal  elegantly 
treasured  in  the  horns  of  plenty.  How  he  re- 
vived for  us  the  soul  of  the  mother-church  of 
Venice — the  handful  of  poor  refugees:  primitive 
people,  shipwrecked,  as  it  were,  upon  that  lonely 
island  ;  yet,  in  their  way,  refined  thinkers,  with  a 
command  of  art  and  image,  as  became  the  heirs 
of  more  than  one  immeasurable  ideal. 

Seven  years  later  I  went  to  see  the  Renans  at 
the  College  of  France,  and  thenceforward  they 


ECCLESIASTES  IN  A  DEMOCRACY  249 


both  are  blended  with  the  happy  memories  of  my 
married  life.  Madame  Renan  bestowed  her  kind 
protecting  friendship  on  the  foreign  bride.  Her 
husband,  as  Head  of  the  College,  as  President  of 
the  Asiatic  Society  where  M.  Darmesteter  was 
Secretary,  was  my  husband's  "chief" — and  in 
more  ways  than  these,  for  was  he  not  first  among 
the  students  of  old  faiths,  and  the  leader  of 
Oriental  philologists  in  France?  Though  much 
firmness  and  an  unalterable  decision  were  masked 
by  that  benignant  affability  of  his,  he  was  the 
most  genial  of  chiefs.  I  remember  one  after- 
noon, when  we  were  in  mourning  and  my  husband 
ill,  how  he  walked  quickly  into  our  little  salon, 
embraced  James  on  either  cheek,  tapped  him  on 
the  shoulder,  and  pinned  the  Cross  of  the  Legion 
of  Honour  in  his  coat. 

If  we  went  to  see  him  in  his  study  at  the 
College,  how  wise  were  his  counsels,  never  volun- 
teered !  No  man  made  less  of  a  fetish  of  his 
work.  Those  golden  phrases  of  his  were  often 
interrupted,  for  his  time  was  at  the  disposal  of 
those  who  needed  it.  When  a  visitor  arrived,  he 
would  lay  down  his  pen,  give  his  mind  to  his 
guest  until  the  door  shut  upon  him,  and  then  he 
would  resume,  without  a  pause,  the  unfinished 
sentence.  So  he  threw  off  the  first  jet,  generally 
copied  by  Madame  Renan,  recorrected,  set  up  by 


250       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 

the  printer,  and  polished  slowly  and  lovingly  on 
proof  after  proof  of  his  interminable  revise. 

He  was  somewhat  disquieted  by  the  drones 
and  butterflies  drawn  to  the  College  by  the  honey 
of  his  hive.  One  cannot  imagine  his  serenity 
ruffled.  But  a  summer  lightning  of  irony  would 
play  in  his  eyes  when  too  many  tall  English 
tourists,  too  many  marvellous  Parisian  toilettes,  oc- 
cupied the  narrow  benches  of  the  little  "  Salle  des 
Langues."  I  am  told  that  on  one  such  occasion, 
seeing  his  own  students  ousted,  he  bowed  to  the 
motley  company  as  amiably  as  ever — "  I  am  en- 
chanted," he  began,  "  to  observe  the  vogue  for 
abstruse  Hebrew  studies  which  obtains  to-day. 
In  the  presence  of  so  choice  an  audience  (another 
bow)  there  can  be  no  need  of  an  introduction  to 
our  subject.  We  will  therefore  read  our  text, 
phrase  after  phrase,  in  turn — in  the  original 
Hebrew  " — a  quick  dispersion  left  the  scholars  to 
their  book. 

M.  Renan  talked  marvellously  well,  and  he 
loved  talking.  He  had  little  of  the  ready  give- 
and-take  which  is  the  most  usual  form  of  wit, 
yet  he  had  a  colloquial  magic  of  his  own.  His 
conversation  was  an  attentive  silence,  interrupted 
by  long  pauses  of  solitary  meditation,  and  by 
outbursts  of  radiant  monologue.  He  liked  dining 
out.     Some  of  my  most  agreeable  recollections 


ECCLESIASTES  IN  A  DEMOCRACY  251 


are  of  the  subtle  and  singular  reflections  with 
which,  as  with  the  wave  of  a  fairy  wand,  our 
enchanter  would  turn  a  Paris  dinner-party  into 
an  elect  symposium.  He  could  be  grave — he 
could  be  gay.  That  night,  for  instance,  when  he 
told  us — with  what  charm  !  with  what  elegant 
lightness  ! — the  story  of  the  Babylonian  Tobias. 
Rash  and  young,  this  Chaldaean  brother  of  our 
Tobit,  discouraged  by  the  difficult  approaches  of 
prosperity,  had  entered  into  partnership  with 
a  demi-god  or  Demon,  who  made  all  his  schemes 
succeed  and  pocketed  fifty  per  cent,  upon  the  pro- 
fits. The  remaining  fifty  sufficed  to  make  Tobias 
as  rich  as  Oriental  fancy  can  imagine.  The  young 
man  fell  in  love,  married  his  bride  and  brought  her 
home.  .  .  .  On  the  threshold  stood  the  Demon  : 
"  How  about  my  fifty  per  cent.  ?  "  The  Venus 
d'llle,  you  see,  was  not  born  yesterday.  From 
the  dimmest  dawn  of  time,  sages  have  taught 
us  not  to  trust  the  gods  too  far ! 

Mvpidvovg  avqp — M.  Renan  had  far  other  moods. 
I  remember  a  more  serious  banquet.  It  was  at 
the  house  of  the  dear  philosopher  of  the  Rue 
Cassette.  The  Renans  were  there,  some  others, 
the  Lyttons,  I  believe,  and  ourselves.  That 
morning  M.  Taine  had  received  a  bundle  of  the 
papers  of  the  Psychical  Research  Society.  The 
psychologist — much  interested  at  that  time  in 


252       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  REN  AN 


the  problems  of  dual  personality  and  so  forth — 
let  the  conversation  wander  into  the  dubious 
sphere  of  the  phantoms  of  the  living.  M.  Renan 
appeared  sunk  in  a  dream  of  his  own.  From 
time  to  time  he  shook  his  mane,  like  a  slumber- 
ing lion.  Suddenly  he  looked  up  and  spoke, 
with  a  flash  in  his  blue  eyes — fahg  w  Tig  sXsyxnxog. 
Briefly  indeed,  and  with  a  rare  scorn  in  his  irony, 
did  the  cross-examining  God  dispose  of  those 
vague  approximations,  those  imprecise  reminis- 
cences of  another's  experience,  which  suffice  to 
found  a  fact  in  the  annals  of  unscientific  ob- 
servers. Truth,  Science,  were  eloquently  bid  to 
the  rescue,  enjoined  to  engulph  and  swallow  up 
the  miracle -mongery,  the  wonder- worship,  still 
so  dear  to  the  fashionable  uneducated.  And 
suddenly  the  prophet  relented,  cast  up  his  hands 
in  kindly  deprecation — "  O  les  gens  du  monde  ! 
la  science  des  gens  du  monde ! "  In  spite  of 
all,  he  knew  he  had  a  weakness  for  these  well- 
bred  culprits. 

Such  outbursts  were  rare.  The  affable  Arch- 
angel concealed  them,  as  it  were,  under  a  cas- 
sock of  non-committal  ecclesiastical  courtesy.  He 
generally  acquiesced.  I  used  to  wonder  what 
assertion  would  be  too  wild  to  provoke  his 
amiable  "  Mais  certainement,  Madame  !  "  He 
would  let  any  young  lady  explain  to  him  the 


ECCLESIASTES  IN  A  DEMOCRACY  253 


nicest  points  in  Semitic  archaeology  without  a 
protest.  Sometimes  I  tried,  I  admit,  how  far 
one  could  go.  Perhaps  there  was  a  twinkle 
in  the  kindly  indifferent  eye.  Never  anything 
so  pedantic  as  a  contradiction. 

M.  Renan  and  I  were  born  on  the  same 
day  —  at  an  interval  of  some  five  -  and  -  thirty 
years — or  rather  we  thought  we  were  so  born. 
For  it  is  characteristic  of  the  idealist  that  all 
his  life  he  thought  himself  a  day  older  than  he 
was.  On  the  27th  of  February,  notes  and  flowers 
went  gaily  between  us.  For  M.  Renan  was  gay  : 
M.  Lemaitre  has  reproached  him  with  the  fact,  and 
it  is  true.  Despite  old  age,  and  constant  pain, 
lack  of  breath,  and  sometimes  lack  of  means — 
despite  the  prospect  of  the  end  at  hand,  M.  Renan 
was  gay,  unfailingly  patient,  cheerful,  and  serene. 
One  27th  of  February  there  were  no  more  good 
wishes,  and  yet,  as  we  talked  with  Madame 
Renan,  the  kind  sage  seemed  almost  one  among 
us.  "  A  widow,"  said  Michelet,  "  should  be  her 
husband's  soul  delayed  among  us."  Such  was 
she.  The  thoughts,  the  wishes,  the  counsels, 
the  memories  of  M.  Renan  lingered  with  us 
eighteen  months  after  we  had  bidden  him  fare- 
well. The  past  abided  with  her.  She  would 
spend  hours  contentedly  reviving  the  episodes  of 
their  journey  in  Asia  Minor,  living  over  again 


254       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


the  first  years  of  her  marriage.  Happy  years 
full  of  youth  and  love  and  poverty,  when, 
at  the  end  of  his  long  day's  work,  she  used 
to  carry  off  her  young  husband  on  some  in- 
expensive adventure.  "  We  used  to  call  on 
the  cats  of  the  Quarter !  M.  Renan  had  names 
for  them  all.  You  may  put  that  in  your  book  ! " 
she  would  say  with  a  smile.  This  book  was  a 
favourite  project  of  her's.  We  made  plans  for 
writing  it  together ;  and,  indeed,  I  could  never 
have  written  it  without  her.  But  she  missed  too 
sorely,  she  mourned  too  faithfully,  the  hero  of  our 
biography,  and,  before  a  line  of  it  was  set  down,  I 
learned  one  day,  at  her  door,  that  she  would 
never  read  it. 

But  remembrance  carries  me  too  fast.  Those 
days  have  not  yet  dawned.  A  brief  spell  of  life 
and  noble  labour  remains  to  Ernest  Renan. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  HISTORY  OF  ISRAEL 

IN  that  writing-table  drawer  to  which  our 
philosopher  confided  so  many  private  ejacu- 
lations, Madame  Renan  found  a  slip  of  paper  on 
which  was  written  :  "  Of  all  that  I  have  done, 
I  prefer  the  Corpus?  Of  average,  well-read 
persons,  taking  an  interest  in  European  literature, 
I  suppose  some  fifty  per  cent,  may  have  read 
the  Souvenirs  of  Ernest  Renan,  and  perhaps 
twenty  per  cent,  the  Life  of  Jesus,  and  ten, 
at  most,  let  us  say,  some  other  work  of  the 
master's  —  usually  the  Feuilles  Detachees,  or 
the  recently  published  Letters,  but  occasionally 
St  Paul,  or  the  Apostles,  or  perhaps  one 
of  the  two  lovely  volumes  of  Religious  Studies, 
Qr  the  Essays  on  Moral  Science  and  Criticism. 
But  for  every  hundred  cultured  readers,  scarce 
the  fraction  of  a  unit  can  be  placed  to  the 
account  of  the  Corpus.  The  Corpus  Semiticarum 
Inscriptionum  is  not  in  any  sense  a  book.  It 

is  a  tool  for  scholars.    It  is  a  collection  of  all 

255 


256       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


the  Semitic  inscriptions  as  yet  discovered  on 
Jewish,  Aramean,  Phoenician,  Himyarite,  Cartha- 
ginian, Cypriote,  Greek,  Egyptian,  Sicilian,  Mal- 
tese, Sardinian,  Arabian,  Assyrian,  and  Chaldsean 
monuments.  The  comparison  of  these  inscrip- 
tions—the unsuspected  details,  the  singular 
rapprochements which  result  from  such  a  compari- 
son— is,  perhaps,  the  most  important  factor  in  the 
exegesis  and  the  historical  discoveries  of  the 
future.  In  the  study  of  the  Past  no  detail  is 
insignificant ;  the  most  patient  analysis  of  the 
greatest  possible  quantity  of  authentic  material 
is  the  first  condition  of  historic  insight.  A  poet, 
a  prophet  may  touch  the  dry  bones  and  make 
them  live.  But  without  these  dry  bones,  appar- 
ently so  mouldered  and  remote,  even  an  Ezekiel 
were  of  no  avail.  Renan  never  forgot  this 
essential  truth.  His  soaring  genius  was  con- 
stantly refreshed  from  the  humble  springs  of 
fact  and  certainty. 

It  was  in  1867  that  M.  Renan  proposed  to  the 
Academy  of  Science  and  Belle  Lettres  the  forma- 
tion of  a  Corpus  for  Semitic  inscriptions  on  the 
model  of  Bcekh's  Greek  Corpus  ;  but  it  was  only 
in  18  81  that  the  first  number  was  given  to  the 
world.  Semitic  epigraphy  is  a  recent  science, 
and  every  year  adds  to  its  scanty  store,  and 
patiently  reanimates  the  past  of  Israel,  and  of  the 


THE  HISTORY  OF  ISRAEL  257 


neighbours  of  Israel,  too  long  transfigured  by  an 
exclusively  sacred  tradition  into  something  out  of 
the  likeness  of  human  days  and  works.  The 
materials  are  slowly  accumulating  for  a  definite 
history  of  the  Semitic  kingdoms.  M.  Renan, 
nourished  on  the  Bible,  familiar  with  the  sites  and 
races  of  the  Holy  Land,  was  almost  the  first  to 
perceive  the  extent  of  the  fresh  resources  offered 
by  recent  epigraphy. 

Renan  commenced  his  "  History  of  the  People 
of  Israel "  at  sixty  years  of  age— the  first  volume 
appeared  in  18  8  7 — having  spent  his  whole  life 
in  studying  the  materials  which  critics,  scholars, 
archaeologists,  and  explorers  have  gathered  con- 
cerning the  Semitic  peoples.  Forty  years  before 
he  had  planned  his  great  work  on  the  "  Origins 
of  Christianity."  "  I  ought  to  have  begun  with 
the  Prophets,"  he  said  later ;  but  the  figure  of 
Jesus  attracted  him  with  an  incessant  magnetism, 
and  besides,  a  delicate  lad  of  twenty,  he  had 
not  dared  to  count  upon  so  long  a  future.  Now 
he  determined  to  fill  up  the  weak  places  in  his 
foundations,  and  to  found  Christianity,  as  in 
truth  it  is  founded,  on  the  teachings  of  Amos, 
of  Isaiah,  of  Ezekiel,  and  especially  of  the  great 
nameless  prophet,  who  wrote  the  latter  chapters 
of  the  book  we  call  Isaiah's. 

The  originality  of  Renan's  "History  of  Israel  " 
R 


258       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


lies  in  this  fact,  that  he  places  the  Prophets  at 
the  very  core  and  centre  of  Jewish  thought — 
the  Prophets,  not  Moses  or  Elias.  The  first 
volume  of  his  history  is  perhaps  disappointing  ; 
it  is  less  a  history  than  a  vague  poetic  rhapsody 
—  such  as  we  expect  from  a  Michelet  rather 
than  a  Renan  —  a  piece  of  cosmic  folk-lore, 
too  merely  grandiose  and  picturesque.  Yet 
it  contains  a  page  on  the  civilisation  of  Babylonia 
which  no  reader  can  forget ;  and  the  idyll  of 
Father  Orcham,  the  ideal  king  of  the  Chaldsean 
golden  age,  whom  the  pastors  of  Israel  adopted 
for  their  ancestor,  has  the  true  ring  of  a  primitive 
fable.  But  surely  M.  Renan  exaggerates  the 
monotheism  of  these  tribal  wanderers  ?  He 
is  never  so  happy  as  when  divining  in  its  ultimate 
recesses,  calling  up  from  its  deepest  hiding-places, 
the  different  forms  of  religious  feeling.  And 
yet  we  think  he  antedates  the  religious  tendency 
of  these  primitive  tribesmen.  Surely  in  their 
attitude  towards  the  Unknown  there  was  little 
but  dread  and  mere  propitiation. 

Something  of  the  same  fatigue,  the  same  in- 
adequacy, is  shown  in  the  history  of  David  and 
Solomon,  however  picturesque,  however  full  of 
recondite  and  charming  detail.  Yet  David,  the 
brigand  chief,  ruling  Israel  by  means  of  his  Cretan 
mercenaries ;   Solomon,  the  intelligent,  unpreju- 


THE  HISTORY  OF  ISRAEL  259 


diced,  wise  man  of  the  East,  much  like  many  a 
Jew  of  our  days — shrewd,  epicurean,  materialist, 
blind  to  the  true  vocation  of  his  race  :  these  are 
figures  which  impress  us  by  their  reality  despite 
the  defects  of  the  volume  which  contains  them. 
Of  these  defects  the  greatest  is  an  excessive  use 
of  Renan's  peculiar  irony.  The  immensity  of  his 
mental  horizon  is  such  as  to  include,  and  as  it 
were  to  associate,  objects  which  appear  to  belong 
to  different  spheres  of  thought.  What  can  be 
more  disconcerting  than  his  serene  and  candid 
fashion  of  assuring  us  how  much  the  Book 
of  Jonah  resembles  La  Belle  Helene  ?  —  that 
Jeremiah  was  a  journalist  of  the  type  of  Felix 
Pyat,  and  Ezekiel  a  sort  of  Victor  Hugo  at 
Hauteville  House,  unless,  indeed,  we  consider  him 
more  like  Fourier  ?  These  unexpected  compari- 
sons startle  and  shock  the  attention  of  readers  less 
familiar  with  the  antipodes  of  history  ;  and,  while 
acquitting  our  placid  sage  of  any  childish  desire 
to  merely  dazzle  or  astonish.  I  own  that  I  con- 
sider these  "  actualities  "  misplaced.  They  may 
occasionally  illuminate,  as  by  a  searchlight,  some 
obscure  and  dusty  purlieu  of  the  Past.  But  more 
often  they  merely  serve  to  irritate  the  student ; 
and,  after  a  short  lapse  of  years,  they  will  seem 
even  more  incomprehensible  :  two  Pasts,  neither 
familiar,  will  then  confuse  each  other.    This  con- 


26o       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


tinual  blemish  mars  the  third  volume  of  the 
History  of  Israel  no  less,  and  perhaps  even  more, 
than  the  two  earlier  ones.  But,  at  this  point,  it 
is  caught  up  and,  as  it  were,  whirled  out  of  sight 
in  the  noble  and  living  current  of  the  work.  For 
M.  Renan  touches  his  true  subject  at  last  in  deal- 
ing with  the  Prophets  of  Israel.  The  notion  of 
justice,  of  righteousness  unto  God  and  Man,  the 
divine  necessity  of  self-amelioration,  was  born  into 
the  world  with  Amos  and  Hosea,  and  their  religion 
is  big  with  our  future. 

Renan's  History  of  Israel  is,  in  fact,  a  history  of 
the  religious  Idea  ;  a  chronicle  of  the  divine  thirst 
after  justice  done,  not  to  ourselves,  but  to  all  men, 
for  the  greater  glory  of  God.  The  prehistoric 
cosmogony  of  Israel  is,  in  this  sense,  not  religious 
at  all  :  neither  the  Elohim,  the  multiple  sprites  of 
the  air,  nor  Yahveh,  the  storm-god  of  Sinai,  have 
any  clear  idea  of  right  and  wrong.  They  have 
not  plucked  as  yet  the  fruit  of  the  Tree  of  Know- 
ledge. Their  will  is  capricious,  inexplicable, 
absurd  ;  the  Elohim  wrestle  all  night  with  the 
sons  of  earth,  and  are  wounded  by  a  man  at 
cock-crow  ;  they  enter  into  a  chiefs  garden,  and 
sit  at  meat  with  him.  Yahveh  is  of  a  revolting 
partiality ;  he  protects  his  favourites,  he  takes 
care  of  his  own,  however  little  exemplary  their 
conduct,  so  that  it  is  wise  indeed  to  be  the  servant 


THE  HISTORY  OF  ISRAEL  261 


of  Yahveh.  The  world  which  these  deities  govern 
is  quite  small;  a  ladder  connects  it  with  the 
heaven  which  they  inhabit.  One  may  say  that 
up  to  the  death  of  Solomon  true  religion  was  un- 
known. The  deity  was  still  the  tribal  god  :  his 
prophet  was  still  a  sorcerer,  a  medicine-man,  a 
sort  of  mythic  wonder-worker.  But  let  us  not 
despair  of  that  divine  instinct  in  humanity  which 
knows  how  to  turn  dross  into  gold,  how  to  evolve, 
from  the  primitive  terror  of  soothsay,  the  idea  of 
justice,  the  search  for  truth,  the  thirst  after 
righteousness.  "  Behold  the  days  come  (saith 
the  Lord)  that  I  will  send  a  famine  in  the  land, 
not  a  famine  of  bread  nor  a  thirst  after  water, 
but  of  hearing  the  words  of  the  Lord  "  (Amos, 
viii.  1 1 ).  And  behold,  the  Word  of  the  Lord  has 
grown  in  its  significance.  Yahveh  no  longer  says 
"worship  me  and  prosper"  ;  he  says  "eschew  evil 
and  do  good."  He  commands  no  more  "  take 
thy  brother's  birthright,"  but  "  love  thy  neighbour 
as  thyself." 

It  is  this  moral  evolution  which  is  the  secret  of 
the  undying  importance  of  the  History  of  Israel. 
Full  of  ruse  and  guile,  destitute  of  the  sense  of 
Beauty  which  ennobled  Greece,  or  of  the  political 
and  military  grandeur  which  made  the  force  of 
Rome,  this  small  Syrian  tribe  is  no  less  immortal 
than  Greece  or  Rome,  for  it  first  interpreted  the 


262       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


secret  oracle  within  the  heart  of  humanity.  All 
the  great  fibres  of  spiritual  being  vibrate  in  the 
soul  of  Israel.  Wonder  of  wonders,  the  instinct 
of  religion  reveals  to  the  prophet  even  how 
the  day  shall  dawn  when  religion  shall  be 
other  than  he  may  conceive  it — freer,  ampler, 
tied  to  no  ritual,  bound  upon  the  horns  of  no 
altar. 

"  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  (saith  the  Lord) 
that  ye  shall  say  no  more  :  ■  The  Ark  of  the 
Covenant  of  the  Lord ' :  neither  shall  it  come  to 
mind  :  neither  shall  ye  remember  it  ;  neither 
shall  ye  visit  it  ;  neither  shall  these  things  be 
done  any  more  —  neither  shall  ye  walk  any 
more  after  the  imagination  of  an  evil  heart " 
(Jeremiah  iii.  16). 

Every  great  gift  is  developed  and  nourished 
at  the  expense  of  the  exhausted  organism  which 
produces  it.  The  soul,  that  perfect  flower  of 
Israel,  ruined  the  material  prosperity  of  Israel. 
The  doctrines  of  the  Prophets  are  not  compatible 
with  any  strong  military  or  civic  organisation. 
Preoccupied  with  individual  justice, — individual 
well-doing  and  well-being — Amos  and  Jeremiah 
conceived  as  iniquity  the  nation  which  deliber- 
ately devotes  thousands  of  its  offspring  to  the 
brutal  and  stupid  life  of  tent  and  camp.  The 
Assyrian  hoplite  appeared  to  them  even  lower 


THE  HISTORY  OF  ISRAEL  263 


in' the  scale  than  the  captive  of  the  Assyrians 
— for  him,  at  least,  there  should  be  no  return 
from  exile,  no  promised  restoration.  And  in 
a  primitive  civilisation,  the  country  which  means 
to  conquer,  which  means  to  dominate,  can 
only  do  so  at  the  cost  of  the  enforced  service 
of  the  mass  :  a  colossal  unconsented  slavery  in 
the  interests  of  a  fatherland  which  absorbs  and 
does  not  reward  the  factors  of  its  grandeur. 
There  is  its  fine  side,  too,  in  the  military  glory 
of  an  Assyria  or  an  Egypt.  But  Israel  only  sees 
the  innocent  blood,  the  endless  tears  of  the  just 
man  offended,  with  which  the  stones  of  their 
pyramids  are  welded  together.  And  she  will 
none  of  the  magnificence  of  Assur. 

More  than  once,  in  writing  the  History  of 
Israel,  Renan's  thoughts  reverted  to  his  own 
times.  In  Amos  and  Hosea,  in  Jeremiah  and 
Isaiah,  he  saw  the  forerunners  of  the  socialists 
of  our  age.  In  Nineveh  and  Babylon  he  saw 
the  ancestors  of  feudal  Germany.  Which  is 
the  wiser  ?  Almost  invariably,  the  nation  which 
labours  for  Humanity  and  the  Future  works  its 
own  destruction  in  the  process.  The  Kingdom  of 
God  is  not  of  this  wrorld.  In  the  administration 
of  a  great  power,  in  the  maintenance  of  a  national 
army,  there  are  abuses  which  are  almost  neces- 
sary.   A  society  which  is  always  just  is  disarmed 


264       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


before  the  strength  of  the  unscrupulous.  A  people 
whose  teachers  are  concerned  only  with  the  eternal 
verities  will  be  far  behind  Babylon,  not  simply  in 
practical  affairs,  but  also  in  natural  science.  It 
was  Babylon,  after  all,  which  first  attempted  to 
explain  the  Universe ;  Israel  borrowed  the  ten 
opening  chapters  of  Genesis  from  the  savants 
of  Chaldaea.  An  exclusive  preoccupation  with 
piety  and  morals  is  apt  to  produce  a  very 
mediocre  standard  of  culture.  The  ideal  of 
Israel  is  the  ideal  of  a  saint,  a  prophet,  a  monk, 
a  Savonarola.  But  which  did  the  most  for 
Florence,  Savonarola  or  the  Medici  ? 

The  happiness  and  the  sanctity  of  the  in- 
dividual, or  the  splendour  and  force  of  the 
organism  of  which  he  is  an  atom :  whether 
of  these  is  desirable?  More  than  once  Renan 
has  asked  himself  the  question,  to  which  there 
are  only  too  many  answers.  Whichever  response 
we  accept  may  be  an  error,  for,  when  all  is  said, 
which  of  us  can  be  sure  of  what  is  in  fact  the 
real  object  of  Humanity? 

"  He,  at  least,  is  not  wholly  mistaken  who  fears 
lest  he  be  in  the  wrong  and  treats  no  one  as 
blind  ;  who,  ignoring  the  goal  of  Man,  loves  him 
as  he  strives,  he  and  his  work  ;  who  seeks  the 
Truth  in  doubting  of  heart,  and  who  says  to  his 
opponent  :  '  Perchance  seest  thou  clearer  than  1/ 


THE  HISTORY  OF  ISRAEL  265 


He,  in  fine,  who  accords  his  fellows  the  wide 
liberty  he  takes  for  himself ; — he  surely  may 
sleep  in  peace  and  await  the  judgment  of  all 
things,  if  such  a  judgment  there  shall  be."  1 

1  Hist,  du peupled? Israel^  III.,  p.  279. 


CHAPTER  VI 


LAST  DAYS 

"  T  N  the  Name  of  Life,  the  vast,  the  mysterious, 
the  excellent ! "  So  begins  the  Bible  of 
the  Mendai'tes,  and  under  this  invocation  would  I 
place  the  last  philosophy  of  Ernest  Renan.  The 
final  reaction  of  his  mind  was,  after  all,  optimistic. 
Man  is  full  of  errors,  but  error  is  essentially 
transitory,  and  the  eternal  result  of  his  passage 
through  the  universe  is  Truth.  God  is  absent 
from  the  scheme  of  things  in  the  sense  of  Action  ; 
in  all  the  ages  of  human  history  no  trustworthy 
evidence  attests  a  divine  intervention  to  protect 
the  innocent  or  to  relieve  the  sufferer.  But  the 
law  and  condition  of  so  much  of  the  Universe  as 
we  may  understand  is  ever  a  perpetual  Fieri y  a 
divine  Becoming,  an  eternal  development  towards 
an  unknown  end,  which  may  become  at  last  a 
manifestation  of  the  Hidden  Divinity.  Nor,  be- 
cause His  ways  are  not  as  our  ways,  His  thoughts 
as  our  thoughts,  let  us  too  hastily  conclude  the 
eternal  absence  of  that  Heavenly  Father  which 

the  heart  of  man  claims,  and  to  which  he  calls 

266 


LAST  DAYS 


267 


incessantly  without  response.  Out  of  our  tears 
and  our  prayers  He  may  yet  be  born.  More- 
over, rightly  considered,  is  not  that  call  of  ours 
its  own  answer  ?  Disinterested  prayer  is  not 
a  petition  but  an  act  of  praise,  an  act  of 
Hope,  an  inner  communing  with  the  principle 
of  things,  an  affirmation  of  the  spiritual  Reality 
which  governs  appearances.  "  And  our  day- 
dreams themselves  are  another  fashion  of  ador- 
ing— a  poor  inferior  prayer,  full  of  long  re- 
mainders of  the  ardour  of  our  youth,  warm  as 
covered  embers  are,  instinct  with  the  secret 
assurance  that  the  Absolute  Night  itself  is,  per- 
chance, not  devoid  of  this  same  lingering  warmth 
and  life  !  "  1  The  unselfish  man — the  only  one 
who  counts — prays  in  secret  a  hundred  times  a 
day.  For  an  acquiescence  in  the  laws  of  that 
Universe,  in  which  alone  we  may  see  God, — "as 
in  a  glass,  darkly," — is  not  this  also  Prayer  and 
an  act  of  Faith  ? 

We  must  fain  believe  in  Something  inde- 
pendent of  the  Finite  and  the  Knowable,  when 
in  our  own  hearts,  in  our  own  lives,  in  the 
lives  of  all  around  us  we  observe  the  persistence 
and  the  universality  of  certain  great  guiding 
principles  which  are  folly,  according  to  the  wis- 
dom of  this  world :    self-sacrifice,  love,  disin- 

1  Preface  to  the  Nouvelles  Etudes  Religieuses% 


268       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


terestedness,  the  instinct  of  Duty.  These  are 
the  voice  of  the  Universe,  "  a  language  which 
hails  from  the  Infinite,  perfectly  clear  in  its  com- 
mands, obscure  in  its  promises  " 1 — a  language, 
which  in  some  fashion  and  degree,  we  all  obey. 
No  man  is  absolutely  and  consistently  a  monster  ; 
in  every  life  there  is  some  effort  towards  Love, 
Truth,  or  Beauty  ;  the  worst  man  drops  one  of 
these  priceless  gold  coins  into  the  world's  coffer 
against  the  millions  of  mere  brass  counters  which 
he  squanders  out  of  window.  And  in  the 
scheme  of  things,  Good  is  a  coin  of  great 
price,  Evil  is  poor  trash  of  no  value.  Thus 
there  is  scarce  any  existence  which,  rightly 
summed  up,  does  not  show  an  imperceptible 
balance  to  the  good. 

Like  Francis  of  Assisi,  whom  he  understood 
so  well  ("  St  Francis  will  save  him  ! "  once  cried 
a  Capuchin  friar),  Renan  had  arrived  at  the 
supreme  indulgence — he  no  longer  believed  in 
the  existence  of  sin.  Evil  appeared  to  him  a 
void,  a  vacuum,  a  gap  to  be  filled  up  in  the 
gradual  process  of  Creation  ;  but  not  a  substance 
to  be  vanquished  and  destroyed.  Of  him  also 
might  it  be  said :  "  He  would  not  admit  the 
reality  of  evil.  It  is  not  that  he  was  indifferent, 
but,  in  probing  the  heart  of  man,  he  found  no  irre- 

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LAST  DAYS 


269 


missible  guilt  in  it:  the  one  sin  is  baseness;  weak- 
ness, error,  seemed  to  him  scarcely  sin/' 1  He 
would  have  said  with  Plato,  that  when  the  Soul 
is  alienate  from  Truth,  it  is  always  momentarily 
so  constrained  against  its  will :  the  natural  growth 
of  our  spirits  being  towards  the  light.  An  in- 
voluntary opinion  can  not  be  a  crime.  Let  us 
believe  that  the  sin  of  our  neighbour  is  no  affair 
of  ours,  and  probably  infinitely  less  important 
than  we  deem  it.  In  time,  the  Truth  will 
certainly  prevail,  and  convince  even  them  that 
sit  in  outer  darkness. 

The  two  fundamental  doctrines  of  religion 
remain  undemonstrable  :  no  man  can  prove  the 
existence  of  a  personal  God,  nor  the  im- 
mortality of  the  Soul.  The  task  of  the  modern 
thinker  is  the  task  of  Kant — the  task  of  the 
Prophets  of  Israel.  They  justified  the  ways  of 
God  to  man  with  little  more  than  the  minimum 
of  faith  ;  from  the  rebellious  stuff  of  humanity 
they  extracted  righteousness  and  resignation,  and 
patient  depths  of  long  self-sacrifice,  with  no  sure 
promise  of  a  future  life.  They  loved  God  for 
God,  and  the  right  for  the  sake  of  righteousness. 
Happy  those  who  can  so  inspire  their  fellows 
without  alleging  anything  unproven,  anything 
with  which  their  conscience  may  reproach  them 

1  Nouvelles  Etudes  Religieuses:  St  Francois  d'Assise,  p.  333. 


270       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


as  a  lure.  Piety  may  exist  independent  of  all 
dogma,  and  may  prove  the  inner  strength  and 
consolation  of  the  Soul.  We  may  still  "  seek 
God,"  like  the  wise  men  of  Israel,  and  find  much 
sweetness  in  that  seeking.  We  may  weep  to 
Him  alone  in  our  trouble,  nor  our  tears  be  shed 
in  vain.  For  in  the  end,  in  the  infinite  end  of 
ages,  Humanity  creates  the  thing  which  it  desires. 
And  at  last,  at  last,  all  the  dreams  of  Man  come 
true. 

Thus  "the  most  logical  attitude  of  the  thinker 
towards  Religion  is :  to  behave  as  though  Religion 
were  true.  We  must  act  as  though  God  and 
the  Soul  were  proven.  Religion  is  one  of  the 
numerous  hypotheses,  such  as  the  waves  of  ether, 
or  the  electric,  luminous,  caloric  and  nervous  fluids, 
nay,  the  atom  itself,  which  we  know  to  be  mere 
symbols  and  manners  of  speech,  convenient  for 
the  explaining  of  certain  phenomena,  but  which, 
none  the  less,  we  maintain." 1  The  more  we 
reflect,  the  more  we  see  the  impossibility  of 
proving,  but  also  the  moral  necessity  of  be- 
lieving in,  these  great  premisses  :  God  and 
the  Soul.  Let  us  keep  the  category  of  the 
Unknowable  !  Parallels  meet  at  the  Infinite : 
Science  and  Religion  doubtless  meet  there.  And 
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LAST  DAYS 


271 


if  not  ? — Why,  then,  Renan  would  have  said  with 
Goethe  : 

"  Wen  Gott  betriigt  ist  wohl  betrogen." 

The  most  intelligent  course  of  Man,  as  well 
as  the  most  virtuous,  is  to  act  in  the  general 
sense  of  Universal  Law.  Domine,  si  error  est,  a 
te  decepti  sunt  I 

In  philosophy  the  consolatory  hypothesis  is, 
after  all,  as  good  an  hypothesis  as  any  other.  It 
is  the  only  one  which  could  abidingly  content  a 
man  like  Renan,  who, — dilettante  and  scholar  as 
he  remained,  no  doubt, — was  none  the  less,  by 
the  inner  constitution  of  his  being,  a  profoundly 
religious  man.  The  needs  of  his  nature  were 
triple :  his  heart  desired  Beauty  and  his  mind 
Truth ;  but  the  earnest  problem  of  Man's  virtue 
in  Nature's  ruthlessness  was  the  fundamental  pre- 
occupation of  his  soul. 

"  I  often  reproach  myself  (he  said,  in  almost 
the  last  pages  that  fell  from  his  hand)  because 
at  my  age,  I  am  sometimes  occupied  with  other 
things  than  these  Eternal  Verities.  My  excuse 
is  that  my  chief  duty  here  below  is  accomplished. 
.  .  .  That  last  arch  of  the  bridge  which  I  had 
still  to  throw  between  Christianity  and  Judaism, 
is  now  established.  ...  I  have  still  much  to  do 
in  the  way  of  proof-correcting ;  but,  if  I  died 


272       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


to-morrow,  with  the  aid  of  a  good  corrector, 
my  History  of  Israel  could  -appear  in  its  com- 
pleteness." 1 

The  third  and  finest  volume  of  this  last  and 
great  work  appeared  in  1891.  Renan  did  not 
live  to  see  the  publication  of  the  two  concluding 
tomes,  which  he  left  almost  finished,  lacking,  in- 
deed, those  fine  last  touches,  those  delicate  elabor- 
ations and  reservations,  which  he  was  wont  to 
add — patiently,  interminably — on  page  after  page 
of  his  proofs.  The  pearl  has  less  gloss,  and  a 
dimmer  orient,  it  may  be ;  but  its  orb  is  perfect, 
and  its  structure  sound.  The  chapters  on  Philo 
and  the  Essenians,  which  adorn  the  fifth  volume, 
are  among  the  most  vivid  and  the  purest  which 
we  owe  to  Renan's  singular  genius.  Age  could 
not  stale  nor  custom  wither  that  infinite  variety. 
The  extraordinary  freshness,  the  divine  youth  of 
his  spirit  remained  almost  unimpaired  by  suffering, 
to  his  last  hour.  It  is  a  freshness  as  of  thyme  and 
dew  on  a  spring  morning ;  something  natural, 
and  sweet,  and  pure ;  and  it  was  never  more 
conspicuous,  as  mere  style,  than  in  those  Feuilles 
Detaches,  which  he  collected  and  published  in  the 
very  year  of  his  death. 

For  long  enough  his  health  had  been  failing. 
He  took  all  the  little  miseries  of  age  and  a  broken 

1  Preface  to  Feuilles  Detachers. 


LAST  DAYS 


273 


constitution  in  that  spirit  of  mingled  irony  and 
sweetness  which  never  left  him.  Before  mere 
physical  suffering,  he  was  ever  serene  as  an 
image  of  Buddha.  Enforced  idleness  was  a 
sorer  burden,  and  sometimes  he  would  half  com- 
plain that  in  his  childhood  he  had  never  learned 
to  play.  His  little  grandchildren  began  his 
instruction  in  that  wise  art.  But  the  sage  was 
too  tired  to  prove  an  apt  pupil.  He  liked  best  to 
look  on  and  listen,  thinking  of  many  things,  and 
enjoying  that  last  pleasure  of  watching  life's 
morning  windows  brighten  when  the  sun  forsakes 
us  in  the  west. 

Few  people  suffer  more  than  he  in  his  last 
illness.  Protracted  neuralgia  tortured  him  month 
by  month.  He  admitted  the  fact,  but  never 
murmured,  and  would  certainly  not  have  owned 
himself  unhappy.  For  he  loved  Life,  and  saw  that 
it  was  good.  Self-pity  was  a  weakness  which  he 
knew  not.  Nor  did  his  own  pain  ever  blind  him 
to  the  immense  sum  of  virtue,  love,  beauty, 
knowledge,  and  innocent  happiness,  which,  all 
round  him,  at  that  instant,  the  universe  was 
yielding  undiminished.  That  tiny  but  eternal 
residue  of  good,  that  drop  of  immortal  aroma, 
which  the  scheme  of  things  secretes  from  day 
to  day,  appeared  to  impregnate  every  moment 
of  his  life,  and  to  embalm  even  the  pangs  of  his 

s 


274       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


agony.  I  think  there  was  no  day,  even  of  that 
cruel  last  year,  from  which  he  would  not  have 
offered  from  a  sincere  heart,  his  Te  Deum  Laud- 
amus.  If  there  were  hours  in  it  racked  with 
intercostal  neuralgia,  stupefied  with  oppressive 
weakness,  there  were  also  moments  —  divine 
moments  whose  superior  value  outweighed  those 
hours — in  which  he  was  able  to  complete  the 
great  task  of  his  life  ;  or  which  he  gave  to  the 
management  of  that  beloved  College  whose  good 
genius  he  was  ;  or  he  spent  them  in  discussing 
with  a  few  chosen  spirits — M.  Berthelot,  M.  Taine, 
M.  Gaston  Paris,  and  some  others  ever  welcome — 
the  questions  which  occupied  his  unfailing  mind  in 
sickness  as  in  health  ;  or,  simply,  he  let  himself 
rest  in  the  tender  love  of  his  dear  wife  and 
children. 

He  knew  that  he  was  dying.  The  physicians 
continued  to  speak  of  gout,  of  rheumatism,  of 
neuralgia — but  it  is,  I  think,  impossible  to  have 
a  mortal  disease  and  not  to  know  it :  for  years  he 
had  told  his  wife  that  his  heart  was  affected. 
But  he  was  dying  at  the  end  of  his  chosen  task, 
having  completed  the  immense  circle  which  he 
had  dared  to  trace.  He  had  married  his  daughter, 
and  had  embraced  her  children.  The  sensitive 
artistic  spirit  of  his  son,  the  painter,  showed  itself 
calmed  and  fortified  by  the  first  draught  of  success. 


LAST  DAYS 


275 


His  wife,  the  trusted  confidante  and  secretary 
of  more  than  thirty  years,  would  execute  his 
last  wishes,  and  would  see  his  History  through 
the  press.  One  of  his  favourite  pupils  would 
succeed  him  in  his  chair  at  the  College  of 
France,  and  in  the  direction  of  the  Corpus.  He 
could  repeat  with  the  ancient  Simeon :  Nunc 
dimittis  servum  tuum,  Domine,  secundum  verbum 
tuumy  in  pace.  .  .  . 

The  future,  in  fine,  was  a  spectacle  which  he 
could  regard  with  a  great  satisfaction.  He  had 
given  his  life  to  Truth,  and  he  had  certainly 
furthered  her  progress.  He  had  chosen  the  better 
part,  and  it  had  not  been  taken  away  from  him. 
The  things  in  which  he  had  put  the  truest  part  of 
his  life  would  survive  him,  and  would  be  fruitful 
in  his  absence.  Untimely  death  may  be  terrible, 
for  it  may  mean  a  waste  of  immense  possibilities. 
But  death  when  our  task  is  achieved?  Why 
rebel  against  the  law  of  nature  ?  Did  we  ever 
believe  ourselves  exempt  from  mortality  ? 

At  the  New  Year  of  1892  the  Renans  went  to 
Cap  Martin  for  a  few  weeks  of  sun  and  sea.  The 
blue  Mediterranean  shore  enveloped  the  dying 
sage  with  its  enchantment.  He  felt  better,  well, 
saw  the  future  brighten  and  lengthen  before  him. 
But  the  south  in  winter  is  a  cup  of  which  a 
sick    man   should   drink   deep,  or  not  at  all. 


276       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


Despite  his  wasted  health,  Renan  could  not 
make  up  his  mind  to  desert  the  College  even 
for  a  season.  Before  the  month  was  out  he 
returned  to  resume  his  course  of  Hebrew.  On 
the  return  journey,  at  Dijon,  he  took  a  chill. 
And  after  that,  again,  he  was  less  well  all  winter. 

Those  who  knew  him  as  well  as  I  did  will 
never  forget  his  quiet  heroism,  his  unassuming 
devotion,  all  through  the  first  semestre  of  1892. 
With  my  eyes  shut,  I  can  still  see  the  heavy 
quaint  figure  painfully  descending  the  steep 
stairs  of  the  College,  and  serenely  accosting,  with 
oppressed  breath,  but  without  complaint,  the  col- 
leagues he  directed,  with  a  smile.  He  delivered 
his  lectures  with  exactitude.  He  presided  over 
the  Asiatic  Society.  He  completed  his  studies  on 
the  Mediaeval  Rabbis  for  the  Academy  of  Inscrip- 
tions ; — and  this  was  a  great  joy.  On  Friday 
evenings,  in  his  wife's  salon,  his  friends  found 
him  willing  to  converse  with  them  on  any  sub- 
ject. His  unimpaired  curiosity  continued  to 
interrogate  the  universe.  He  was  dying,  but  he 
had  not  abdicated. 

At  midsummer  he  moved  with  his  family  to 
the  Breton  coast.  And  for  a  while  things  went 
well  with  him.  He  loved  his  calm  manor  of 
Rosmapamon,  the  fresh  quiet  country,  with  its 
green   fields  and  spinnies,  its  commons  golden 


LAST  DAYS 


277 


with  gorse,  its  great  granite  rocks,  its  sombre  and 
splendid  sea.  It  was  there,  perhaps,  that  he 
spent  his  happiest  days.  "  My  ideal  " — (he  says 
in  the  Eau  de  Jouvence,  speaking  as  usual  through 
the  lips  of  Prospero). — "  My  ideal  would  be  an 
old  patriarchal  country  house,  full  of  children 
singing,  full  of  lads  and  lasses  light  of  heart, 
where  everyone  would  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry 
at  my  expense."  Rosmapamon  supplied  his  kind 
old  age  with  that  hospitable  holiday.  There 
were  long  quiet  mornings  for  work :  evenings 
in  which  the  tired  enchanter  saw,  as  he  wished, 
the  young  people  unchecked  by  his  presence  in 
their  merry-making.  In  the  afternoons,  in  the 
long,  lazy,  summer  afternoons,  almost  every  day 
he  went  a  little  walk,  leaning  on  his  wife's  arm. 
He  would  sit  on  a  bank  by  the  side  of  a  field,  and 
look  placidly  over  the  Celtic  landscape  which  he 
had  loved  in  childhood — of  which  he  felt  himself 
an  animate  part.  But  there  was  one  thing  he 
loved  more  than  Nature,  and  that  was  knowledge ; 
the  service  of  Truth.  When,  at  the  end  of  Sep- 
tember, he  had  an  attack  of  the  heart,  he  said  to 
Madame  Renan  :  "  Take  me  back  to  the  College." 
And  there  on  the  12th  of  October  1892,  he  died 
at  his  post. 

He  died  happy.     His  mind  kept  to  the  end  its 


278       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


serene  lucidity,  his  temper  its  kind  sweetness 
unalloyed  by  personal  repining.  All  he  asked 
was  that  his  illness  should  put  nothing  out  of  its 
due  order,  that  his  death  should  cost  no  excessive 
grief — the  only  thing  in  which  his  wife  ever 
disobeyed  him.  "  I  have  done  my  work,"  he  said 
to  Madame  Renan,  "  I  die  happy."  And  again 
he  said,  "  It  is  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world  to  die :  let  us  accept  the  Laws  of  the 
Universe " — and  he  added  :  "  the  heavens  and 
the  earth  remain." 

So  he  passed  away,  and  his  death  struck 
France  with  a  sort  of  stupor.  He  was  the 
greatest  man  of  genius  our  generation  had 
known  :  in  style,  sentiment,  poetry  of  feeling  no 
less  a  Master  than  Victor  Hugo ;  in  history  and 
philosophy  the  compeer  of  Taine ;  in  philology 
the  heir  of  Burnouf.  There  was  scarce  one 
branch  of  thought  in  France  but  it  was  im- 
poverished by  his  disappearance. 

He  was  buried  with  great  honours.  The  grey 
old  College  was  decked  as  for  a  national  festivity. 
The  best  and  wisest  men  in  France  bade  a  public 
farewell  to  his  sacred  ashes.  There  had  been  a 
question  of  laying  him  to  rest  under  the  dome  of 
the  Pantheon.  At  the  last  moment  the  Govern- 
ment feared  the  protest  of  the  Right  at  the 


LAST  DAYS 


279 


opening  of  the  Chambers.  And  the  great  Idealist 
had  not  where  to  lay  his  head.  .  .  .  His  wife  buried 
him  with  her  people  in  the  vault  of  the  Sheffers 
at  Mont-Martre.  But  where  he  should  have 
lain,  where  he  would  have  wished  to  lie,  is  in 
the  small,  green  space  which  the  cloister  of 
Tr^guier  encloses.  "It  is  there  I  would  sleep/' 
he  said  once,  "  under  a  stone  engraved  with  these 
words — 

Veritatem  Dilexi? 

Who  knows  ?  the  day  may  dawn  when  the 
Church  of  his  youth  may  yet  accept  the  guardian- 
ship of  the  grave  of  Ernest  Renan. 

"  All  religions  are  vain  (he  said),  but  religion  is 
not  vain."  ..."  Let  us  not  abjure  our  Heavenly 
Father.  Let  us  not  deny  the  possibility  of  a  final 
justice.  Perchance  we  have  never  known  one  of 
those  tragic  situations  where  God  is  the  sole 
Confidant,  the  necessary  Consoler.  .  .  .  Where 
else  shall  we  seek  the  true  witness,  if  not  on  high  ? 
How  often  have  we  felt  the  need  of  an  appeal  to 
Absolute  Truth  ;  how  often  we  would  cry  to  it : 
'  Speak  !  Speak  ! '  Who  knows  ?  At  that  in- 
stant we  were,  perhaps,  on  the  threshold  of 
Truth.    But  the  strange  thing  is  that  nothing 


28o       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


shows  if  our  protestations  have  found  a  hearing. 
When  Nimrod  shot  his  arrows  into  Heaven,  they 
came  back  to  him  tipped  with  blood.  We  have 
never  received  any  response  at  all.  O  God, 
whom  we  adore  in  spite  of  all,  Thou  art  in  truth 
a  Hidden  God  !  " 1 

These  were  almost  the  last  written  words  of 
Ernest  Renan.  They  are  characteristic.  They 
might  be  taken  from  his  earliest  pages.  Instinct 
and  Reason  speak  to  us  in  different  voices,  equally 
imperious,  equally  insistent ;  only  we  are  most  of 
us  a  little  deaf  with  one  ear !  But  Renan  lost  no 
word  of  either  of  these  eternal  monitors.  There 
is  his  secret,  there  his  charm,  there  the  peculiar 
value  of  his  genius.  But  therein  also  the  some- 
thing unconvinced — or  only  momentarily  convinced 
— which  leaves  his  purest  harmonies  for  ever  un- 
resolved. We  know  that,  in  one  other  moment, 
he  will  hear  the  other  Voice,  he  will  deliver  a 
different  message  :  le  coeur  a  ses  raisons  que  la 
raison  ne  connait  pas.  One  lobe  of  his  brain  is 
continually  engaged  in  supplementing  the  thoughts 
produced  by  the  other :  we  can  imagine  them  as 
two  mirrors  so  placed  as  to  show  the  opposing 
faces  of  the  object  they  reflect.  Fortunately  this 
variety  is  saved  from  chaos  by  certain  dominating 

1  Preface  to  Feuilles  DdtacMes* 


LAST  DAYS 


281 


principles  which  remain  unaltered  in  the  midst  of 
mutability. 

Religion  may  or  may  not  be  true  ;  it  is  not 
vain  ;  even  though  it  answer  to  no  supernatural 
reality.  Our  conscience  is  a  moral  fact  as  im- 
portant as  our  reason,  and  the  man  who  says 
"  I  ought "  as  superior  to  the  savage  as  the  man 
who  says  "  I  reflect." 

The  Good  exists  ;  and  indeed  we  may  say  that 
it  alone  exists.  Evil  is  transitory.  In  its  different 
forms  of  Truth,  Virtue,  Knowledge,  Beauty,  the 
Good  endures  and  accumulates,  and,  by  the  im- 
pulse of  its  own  force,  must  develop  more  and 
more.  "  The  world's  our  oyster  "  :  slowly,  surely, 
it  secretes  the  inevitable  pearl  which  may  survive 
it.  Meanwhile  Evil  is  with  us  certainly.  We 
suffer,  we  are  oppressed  by  material  circumstances, 
we  may  even  die  before  our  time  in  anguish  and 
never  bring  forth  the  fruit  which  we  were  destined 
to  produce.  Yet  the  construction  of  the  universe 
allows  for  infinite  waste.  Other  germs  will  bear ; 
all  will  not  be  blasted.  Evil  is  a  sort  of  moral 
carbonic  acid  gas,  mortal  when  isolated  and  a  real 
danger  to  our  existence  ;  and  yet,  when  combined 
with  other  forces,  not  only  innocuous,  but  even 
necessary  to  our  vital  powers,  in  the  present 
state  of  their  development.  The  important 
thing   in   life  is  not  our  misery,  our  despair, 

T 


282       LIFE  OF  ERNEST  RENAN 


however  crushing,  but  the  one  good  moment 
which  outweighs  it  all.  Man  is  born  to  suffer, 
but  he  is  born  to  hope.  And  the  message  of 
the  universe  still  runs,  as  of  old  :  a/Xhov,  a/Xhov, 
elm,  rh  dy*v  vixdrw. 


PRINTED  BY 
TURNBULL  AND  SPEARS 
EDINBURGH 


